Former Republican Rep. Charlie Dent is speculating that President-elect Donald Trump’s choice of GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz as attorney general may “have to be withdrawn.”
“Trump announced he would be nominating Gaetz to head the Department of Justice on Wednesday. The Florida lawmaker resigned from office following the announcement, just two days before the House Ethics Committee was to vote on releasing a reportedly ‘highly damaging’ probe into him, Punchbowl News reported, citing sources familiar with the investigation,” Newsweek reported.
“Gaetz had been under investigation over allegations that he was part of a scheme that led to the sex trafficking of a 17-year-old girl. The committee said in June it was investigating whether Gaetz engaged in sexual misconduct and illicit drug use, accepted improper gifts, and sought to obstruct government investigations of his conduct. Gaetz has denied all wrongdoing,” Newsweek reported.
CNN’s Anderson Cooper asked Dent, a well-known Trump critic, if he believed that Trump’s appointment of Gaetz might be “too far” for Republican senators during an appearance on CNN.
“Oh goodness, yes,” Dent replied. “This is a gobsmackingly bad nomination. I’d be less surprised, in the words of Chevy Chase, if my face was stapled to the floor. This is really a bad nomination.”
“I can’t imagine any circumstance under which Matt Gaetz would be confirmed. I suspect that Donald Trump will have to withdraw this nomination,” he added.
Dent is not the only Republican to express concerns over Trump’s decision to tap Gaetz as his next attorney general.
Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins was “shocked” at the nomination.
“This is why the Senate’s advice and consent process is so important,” she added. “I’m sure that there will be many, many questions raised at Mr. Gaetz’s hearing.”
Late on Wednesday night, House Speaker Mike Johnson announced that Gaetz had resigned “effective immediately.”
“I think out of deference to us, he issued his resignation letter effective immediately, of Congress. That caught us by surprise a little bit. But I asked him what the reasoning was, and he said, well, you can’t have too many absences. So under Florida State law, there’s about an eight week period to, select and fill in a vacancy,” Johnson told reporters.
“And so by doing so today, that allows me I’ve already placed a call to Governor DeSantis in Florida and said, let’s start the clock. He’s in Italy at the moment. And so we’re going to talk first thing in the morning about this. And if we start the clock now, if you do the math, we may be able to fill that seat as early as January 3rd when we take the new oath of office for the new Congress,” he added.
