Former U.S. Representative Matt Gaetz speaks during a House Judiciary Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, on March 12.MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images
The swift withdrawal of Matt Gaetz as Donald Trump’s choice to be attorney-general is a stunning but telling capitulation to the established ways of the American capital – customs the president-elect seems determined to obliterate.
Aside from Mr. Trump himself, there is no purer breed of Washington rebel than Mr. Gaetz, whose seven years representing Florida’s western panhandle in the House of Representatives were a relentless attack on the conventions of the chamber, and even on the leadership of his own party.
Hours after Mr. Gaetz’s exit on Thursday, Mr. Trump selected former Florida attorney-general Pamela Bondi, who has represented his political and legal interests on many occasions, as his replacement pick.
In the end, it was a mixture of his combative style, his thin legal background, his contempt for the rhythms of Capitol Hill and his alleged violations of the legislative branch’s ethics code that doomed Mr. Gaetz’s nomination. It did not help that he was the principal figure in the overthrow of then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, a weeks-long ordeal that threw the House into upheaval and raised uncomfortable questions about the Republicans’ ability to govern.
But the conclusion of the brief postelection period in which Washington shuddered at the prospect of Mr. Gaetz applying his pugilistic style to the task of overhauling law enforcement to Mr. Trump’s liking represents far more than the end of the confirmation hopes of one political figure.
It is a sharp reminder to Mr. Trump and his team that defeating Kamala Harris in the presidential campaign did not repeal some of the traditions and customs of Washington, where even during a hostile takeover some elements of the bygone ways persist.
It was simply untenable to install an agitator as attorney-general in the Justice Department building named for Robert F. Kennedy. It was insupportable that someone with his own legal challenges could be the principal agent of the enforcement of laws. It was too much to bear – even in a capital that is slowly coming to grips with the notion of a second Trump presidency – to contemplate Mr. Gaetz in the office that Robert Jackson, one of Franklin Roosevelt’s attorneys-general, and Edward H. Levi, Gerald Ford’s attorney-general, occupied.
The selection of Mr. Gaetz was nothing short of a frontal attack on the traditional role of the attorney-general, which is similar in both the United States and Canada.
Irwin Cotler, who served as Canada’s attorney-general under Paul Martin from 2003 to 2006, said in an e-mail that the position is designed to provide independent legal advice and counsel. The role, he said, “includes also providing the best independent expertise in protecting the rule of law, the administration of justice, and the independence of the judiciary.”
Mr. Gaetz gave clear, even enthusiastic evidence that this was not remotely his intention.
The end of the Gaetz bid was not a partisan outcome, though it was certain that all the Democrats in the Senate, and the two Independents, would have opposed his nomination. Several Republicans expressed qualms – if not outright horror – at the president-elect’s selection. This is why Mr. Gaetz, in a statement that was not contested by anyone in political circles, said that his potential nomination was “becoming a distraction.”
Mr. Gaetz’s remark that there was “no time to waste on a needlessly protracted Washington scuffle” brought fresh attention to several of Mr. Trump’s other unusual choices for high office.
His withdrawal will likely not relieve pressure on Pete Hegseth, Mr. Trump’s choice for secretary of defence. The Gaetz contretemps came to an end less than a day after the release of a graphic police record of an encounter that led to Mr. Hegseth paying an accuser to settle an allegation of sexual assault. Police investigated the allegation, but Mr. Hegseth was never criminally charged, and he has denied wrongdoing.
Republican senators have seemed less troubled by the Hegseth nomination than about the Gaetz choice, but the Iraq war veteran faces a difficult confirmation hearing that almost certainly will include mortifying, lurid testimony.
Presidential appointments from time to time find resistance in Washington, but seldom are they met with the degree of outrage that has greeted the Gaetz and Hegseth nominations, along with Mr. Trump’s choice of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as secretary of health and human services, and his decision to name former representative Tulsi Gabbard director of national intelligence.
The denouements of two of the most controversial failed nominations of modern times – Jimmy Carter’s 1977 selection of John F. Kennedy speechwriter Theodore Sorensen as director of central intelligence and Bill Clinton’s choice of Zoe Baird as attorney-general – took months, not days.
The opposition to the Kennedy and Gabbard choices continues to grow. Former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley, an unsuccessful GOP presidential candidate this year, criticized both picks this week.
They are “some of the most astonishing choices for high office,” said Paul Beck, an Ohio State University political scientist. “Many of these people are retrograde choices who have no experience running anything.”