WASHINGTON, (Reuters) – President-elect Donald Trump yesterday named incendiary Republican U.S. Representative Matt Gaetz to be his nominee for attorney general, selecting an ally who has faced Justice Department scrutiny to run the agency.
“Matt will end Weaponized Government, protect our Borders, dismantle Criminal Organizations and restore Americans’ badly-shattered Faith and Confidence in the Justice Department,” Trump said in a statement announcing the selection, which would be subject to confirmation by the Republican-majority Senate.
The choice of a 42-year-old congressman who has never worked in the Justice Department or as a prosecutor at any level of government was the latest in a wave of Trump nominations of candidates with scant experience.
Gaetz resigned from the House of Representatives yesterday “effective immediately,” House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters.
“It caught us by surprise a little bit,” Johnson said of the resignation, adding Gaetz stepped down to quickly start the process of naming a replacement in what is expected to be a closely divided House of Representatives.
Gaetz played an instrumental role in ousting former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in 2023, which kicked off weeks of chaos in the chamber. His nomination as attorney general was met with immediate skepticism by some Senate Republicans — which holds the power to confirm or deny his appointment.
“I don’t think it’s a serious nomination for the attorney general,” Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski told reporters at the Capitol, according to multiple news outlets. “This one was not on my bingo card.”
Trump, who faced two federal criminal indictments following the end of his four-year term in 2021, has for years railed against the Justice Department, and vowed to radically reshape it when he returns to power on Jan. 20. Gaetz on Wednesday mused publicly about abolishing the FBI, a Justice Department unit.
