What Was the Matt Gaetz Attorney General Pick Really About?

Barely a week after he was announced as President-elect Donald Trump's choice for U.S. attorney general, MAGA firebrand Matt Gaetz has withdrawn himself from contention for the post. Officially, Gaetz said on X (formerly Twitter) that his "confirmation was unfairly becoming a distraction to the critical work of the Trump/Vance Transition." Unofficially, The New York Times reported that the votes in the Senate simply were not there: Republicans are set to hold a 53-47 Senate majority come January, but there were at least four implacable "no" votes from Republicans. Interestingly, one of the widely reported "no" votes apparently was outgoing Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), an inveterate MAGA foe.

Many of my fellow conservative lawyers panned the Gaetz pick on the grounds of his lacking the relevant "credentials" or not being "qualified" for the post of the nation's top law enforcement official. I was not necessarily one of them, although Gaetz was not anywhere my own list of best attorney general picks. Given the sexual misconduct ethics controversy surrounding Gaetz and the fact that he is known to have many enemies on both sides of the aisle, Gaetz's confirmation fight was always going to be an uphill slog. The political capital that the transition team and incoming administration would have needed to expend to get Gaetz across the finish line in the Senate was an obvious distraction from the substantive "America First" agenda, which must hit the ground running come January.