Donald Trump is personally calling Republican senators to pressure them to confirm Matt Gaetz’s nomination for attorney general, as the “highly damaging” House Ethics Committee report has now been released to all committee members.
The president-elect tapped the former Florida representative last week to become the nation’s top law enforcement officer, heading up the Department of Justice.
His choice instantly set off alarm bells in moderate GOP circles given that Gaetz was the subject of a Justice Department sex trafficking investigation and a House Ethics Committee probe. Gaetz was never charged with a crime and has denied all wrongdoing.
While pressure is mounting for the ethics report to be released ahead of Senate confirmation hearings, Trump is standing by his choice and is personally lobbying congressional Republicans to make sure his choice is approved in the upper chamber.
Two sources told CNN that the president-elect has been calling GOP senators to reiterate how determined he is to get the 42-year-old conservative firebrand confirmed.
North Dakota Senator Kevin Cramer told Axios he received a call from the incoming commander-in-chief.
“He clearly wants Matt Gaetz,” Cramer said. “He believes Matt Gaetz is the one person who will have the fearlessness and ferociousness, really, to do what needs doing at the Department of Justice.”
House Ethics Committee Chair Michael Guest revealed on Monday that the report into Gaetz’s alleged misconduct has now been made available to all 10 members of the committee, despite attempts from Speaker Mike Johnson to keep the dossier under wraps.
Only Guest and fellow ranking member Pennsylvania Representative Susan Wild previously had a copy, according to Politico.
Gaetz’s resignation from the House last week after Trump announced his nomination effectively ended the House probe as he is no longer under the committee’s jurisdiction. The report was due to be released two daye later.
While some Gaetz allies – including Johnson – say the findings should not be released publicly, many Republicans think it should.
On Wednesday, the committee is scheduled to meet to discuss the report.
Two women who testified to the committee told investigators that Gaetz paid both of them for sex, according to their attorney.
One of his clients also told the committee that she had witnessed the then-Florida lawmaker having sex with a third woman who was 17 years old at the time.
“She testified that in July of 2017, at this house party, she was walking out to the pool area, and she looked to her right, and she saw Representative Gaetz having sex with her friend, who was 17,” attorney Joel Leppard told ABC News.
Trump transition spokesperson Alex Pfeiffer told ABC News in response to the report: “Matt Gaetz will be the next Attorney General. He’s the right man for the job and will end the weaponization of our justice system. These are baseless allegations intended to derail the second Trump administration. The Biden Justice Department investigated Gaetz for years and cleared him of wrongdoing.”
Beyond Gaetz, the president-elect has made a string of controversial choices for some of the top jobs in his second administration, appearing to pick loyalty over political experience.
So far, his administration looks set to include vaccine skeptic Robert F Kennedy Jr as his secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, former Democratic congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard who has been sympathetic to Russian and Syrian dictators as director of national intelligence, and former Fox News host and army veteran Pete Hegseth as secretary of Defense.
