Former Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., on Thursday announced that he would withdraw his name from consideration to be President-elect Donald Trump’s attorney general.
“I had excellent meetings with Senators yesterday. I appreciate their thoughtful feedback — and the incredible support of so many. While the momentum was strong, it is clear that my confirmation was unfairly becoming a distraction to the critical work of the Trump/Vance Transition,” Gaetz wrote in a post on X, just a week after Trump announced he planned to nominate Gaetz to the position.
“There is no time to waste on a needlessly protracted Washington scuffle, thus I’ll be withdrawing my name from consideration to serve as Attorney General. Trump’s DOJ must be in place and ready on Day 1,” Gaetz added.
In a post on TruthSocial, Trump praised Gaetz and said he had been doing “very well” in the confirmation process.
“I greatly appreciate the recent efforts of Matt Gaetz in seeking approval to be Attorney General. He was doing very well but, at the same time, did not want to be a distraction for the Administration, for which he has much respect. Matt has a wonderful future, and I look forward to watching all of the great things he will do!” the president-elect wrote.
Gaetz, whom Trump named last week as his pick for AG, faced significant headwinds in the confirmation process, including a previous investigation by the department he was chosen to lead.
Trump’s selection of Gaetz brought fresh scrutiny to previous allegations against the former congressman, who faced an investigation by the Justice Department that involved allegations of sex trafficking and sex with a minor.
Gaetz has vehemently denied those allegations and the investigation ended with the Justice Department electing not to charge Gaetz.
He resigned from his position in the House last week, effectively ending a separate House Ethics Committee investigation into him.
The committee had been looking into the allegations against Gaetz on and off since 2021. Committee members met Wednesday to discuss whether to release the report on their investigation but did not come to an agreement.
It’s unclear what his decision to pull his name out of consideration for Trump’s Cabinet means for his congressional seat.
Gaetz in his resignation said he would not take oath in new Congress. “I do not intend to take the oath of office for the same office in the 119th Congress to pursue the position of Attorney General in the Trump administration,” he said.
Despite all of this, Trump and Vice President-elect Vance maintained their firm support of Gaetz, with Trump even “heavily working the phones” to drum up support for Gaetz and Vance attending meetings on Capitol Hill all day on Wednesday with senators looking to hear from Gaetz about the allegations.
In the immediate wake of Trump’s selection of Gaetz to lead the Justice Department, a number of senators were skeptical that he would get enough votes to be confirmed by a majority in the Senate.
And after meeting with Gaetz on Wednesday, Sens. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, and John Cornyn, R-Texas, told NBC News that the subject of the allegations arose.
Ernst said that Gaetz brought up the allegations himself during their conversation.
“He volunteered that,” she said, “I’m not going to go any more than that.”
“He was very forthcoming, but that’s all I’m going to say because he will go through a very fair confirmation process with Senator Grassley, and I think a lot of this will get flushed out then,” Ernst added. “I’m just reserving judgment.”
When asked if the allegations against Gaetz came up, Cornyn said, “All I said to him was the–that there are not going to be any secrets here.”
“Everything’s eventually going to come out,” Cornyn added.
Frank Thorp V, Julie Tsirkin and Kyle Stewart contributed.
Leave a Reply