GaetzGate closes; Trump taps Bondi for AG

In a bombshell move, disgraced former Florida congressman Matt Gaetz withdrew his name from consideration for the nation’s top law enforcement official: attorney general. Did Gaetz step aside because of his blatant lack of qualifications or reverence for this critical role? Of course not. 

Despite the attempt at magnanimity in his post, it has since emerged that some inconveniently-timed reporting may have helped scuttle the nomination. Gaetz announced his withdrawal roughly 45 minutes after CNN reporters asked him to comment on revelations that the seventeen-year-old high school junior who he paid for sex testified to multiple encounters with him at the same party in 2017. 

What an appalling, monumental waste of time. Let’s remember: this joker wasn’t even on the president-elect’s shortlist for attorney general until the now-former Florida congressman joined him on a flight from Washington back to West Palm Beach. After the two-hour flight, Trump deplaned, convinced (by a combo meal of MAGA stalwart Boris Epshtyn and whatever fealty Gaetz promised, flavored by Trump's tendency to listen to the last person he heard kissing his ass) that the slick forty-two-year-old was just the right kind of slimeball to be elevated to AG.

The informal nomination was proposed to an astonished nation (not to mention a transparently aghast Congress) last Wednesday, just two days before the House Ethics Committee was set to release the results of a multi-year investigation into allegations against Gaetz. Once given the nod for his potential new role, the Florida Congressman—who has developed a reputation for aggressive MAGA clamor as a ringleader of the extremist faction of the GOP—moved with suspicious alacrity to resign from his post.

Also, just want to return to Gaetz’s post for a beat: the momentum was strong? Which momentum? 

From my vantage point, the only strong momentum were the currents moving against Gaetz, as reports over the past few days revealed how challenging it would be for somebody who had so aggravated his fellow Republicans to get requisite support, particularly in light of the House Ethics report looming over him. 

Quick update on that: the House Ethics Committee opted to continue its investigation into Gaetz even after the Department of Justice decided not to indict him. DOJ’s decision did not mean there was no evidence of wrongdoing. It only meant they had chosen not to move forward with prosecution. But the House Ethics Committee opted to continue its investigation, though they determined on Friday that they would not release the report. 

Manu Raju of CNN spoke with House Ethics Committee Chairman Michael Guest, who explained that the committee’s apparent reservations about releasing the report were due to it being unfinished. So…just so we’re all clear, their justification for withholding it was misgivings about setting a bad precedent by putting out an unfinished report. Ah, so that superseded any concerns about allowing an unvetted, alleged child sex trafficker nominee to become the top law enforcement official in our country? They would be willing to unleash Matt Gaetz upon our justice system and vault him into the position of leading the Department that had just investigated him…but an unfinished report--oh heavens, never! They have standards! What if there was a misplaced apostrophe? What about Guest’s concluding paragraph?   

It took mere minutes for Representative Susan Wild, the ranking Democrat on the committee, to come forward on behalf of the five Dems who had voted in favor of releasing the report to push right back on the misrepresentations being peddled by the Republicans.  

The Chairman has betrayed the process within moments after walking out of the committee. He has implied that there was an agreement of the committee not to disclose the report. That is untrue to the extent that that suggests that the committee was in agreement or that we had a consensus…That did not happen in today's vote and I do not want the American public or anyone else to think that Mr. Guest’s characterization of what transpired today was some sort of indication that the committee had unanimous unanimity or consensus on this issue…That would be an inaccurate portrayal and nobody should take that from what they have heard so far: there was no consensus. 

Here’s the thing that we all understand about the report: either Gaetz did nothing wrong and would be absolved by its release, OR he has committed heinous and potentially criminal behavior and—by virtue of withholding it—any lawmaker who knows its contents becomes complicit in covering it up. 

So while Rep. Guest was able to fend off the media by walking at an uncomfortably swift clip and hustling out of the Capitol as questions were being fired at him, having Democrat Susan Wild emerge and tell the public: ‘yeah…that's not what happened’ would put a lot of pressure on the Chairman to release the report. Gaetz’s alleged crime includes potentially sex trafficking a minor. They would not be able to hold off forever. And the pressure to release the contents was only going to build. 

One has to believe that Gaetz was likely pushed into withdrawing as the only possible avenue. And yes, he has resigned his seat, so the ideal would be if none of us ever had to see his face again. But he resigned his seat in this Congress (the 118th), which he did because he assumed that the Ethics Committee would no longer have jurisdiction over him as a non-member. 

For the moment, it’s a giant relief to know that he will not be this country’s next attorney general. Of course, in Pam Bondi, Trump has already nominated another awful loyalist from the Republican swamp in his wake. But in the case of Gaetz, let’s all hope that his wife, Ginger (whom he met at Mar-a-Lago when she was twenty-six) was accurate when she followed her husband’s announcement by simply posting: “The end of an era.”

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It’s a marvel that Gaetz is no longer up for the job. But do keep in mind that the Republican party was prepared to squander its political capital navigating this shitstorm. This is supposed to be the honeymoon period—yet they’ve spent an enormous amount of energy running cover for an accused child sex trafficker. And that will be something they’ll never be able to take back. This, from the party of family values, the one supposedly out there protecting the children. 

I’d hate for anybody to forget who stood up for this guy, despite what he was accused of doing, and despite his very obvious guilt (I mean…who goes to such lengths to conceal a report proving his innocence?) 

So keep in mind this prime defender, as we forge onward, wondering who to trust:

Naturally, the ever-willing-to-bend Lindsey Graham was firmly on board:

Finally, Marjorie Taylor Greene was SO willing to go to wreck shop for Gaetz that she threatened to release ALL compromising information about her own party if they failed to back his nomination:

I’ll make sure you do, too, MTG.

Now’s the time for Republicans to lead by example on all that accountability and draining the swamp banter. They’ll either continue to throw their support behind someone who is no longer in the House because they’re THAT committed to their fellow Republicans, REGARDLESS of the crimes they commit…or a handful among them may reveal that integrity still exists among our branches of power. Only time and the rest of these sham Cabinet considerations will tell.