Matt Gaetz resigns from House as his Trump Attorney General nomination gets more scandalous
When it was first reported hours ago that Donald Trump was nominating Matt Gaetz as Attorney General of the United States, the whole thing felt like a joke. It turns out it’s very much real. Trump really has made this announcement. But it’s rapidly turning out to be something else.
After the nomination was made, Matt Gaetz immediately resigned from the House. Why do this, given that his confirmation as Attorney General isn’t assured? The Republican-controlled House Ethics Committee was planning to release its long awaited report about Gaetz’s scandals this Friday. By resigning immediately, Gaetz has taken away the committee’s ability to formally release the report.
In other words Gaetz isn’t resigning because of a new job opportunity. He’s resigning because he’s running from his ongoing scandals. His “nomination” for Attorney General is merely giving him cover to resign from the House without having to admit the real reason why.
At this point it calls into question whether this is even a real nomination. We keep hearing about how Trump and the Republican Senate are going to ram through his confirmation during recess, but that would require enough Senate Republicans to go along with it. They’d have likely gone along with almost any nominee – except this one. No one wants to get anywhere near Gaetz’s scandals.
So we’ll see what happens. But you do have to wonder if Gaetz was planning to resign this week simply to get out ahead of the Ethics Committee report (which would have led to his expulsion anyway), and Trump is merely giving him a soft landing by letting him masquerade as the Attorney General nominee for a few days until it implodes. In any case, these people are not exactly competent villains.
