Matt Gaetz, Credibly Accused Sex Criminal, Withdraws from Attorney General Nomination
Photo by Gage Skidmore from Surprise, AZ, United States of America, CC BY-SA 2.0
Matt Gaetz, who was investigated by the Department of Justice for years over credible allegations from multiple sources including his own friends that he sex trafficked a minor, has withdrawn his name from consideration for Attorney General. In announcing his withdrawal, Gaetz wrote on Twitter:
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. 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.I remain fully committed to see that Donald J. Trump is the most successful President in history. I will forever be honored that President Trump nominated me to lead the Department of Justice and I’m certain he will Save America.
This is not proof that credible allegations of having sex with a minor is disqualifying to the GOP, just proof that compelling evidence of it tilts the cost-benefit analysis of his nomination against him. It’s one thing when you can call everything fake news, it’s another when ABC finds your name on a check to the women in question.
TUITION REIMBURSEMENT stahhp abcnews.go.com/US/gaetz-10k…
— Adam Parkhomenko (@adamparkhomenko.bsky.social) November 19, 2024 at 9:00 PM
This is not new. The longest serving Republican Speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert, was sentenced to 15 years in prison in 2016 for financial offenses related to the sexual abuse of teenage boys, as his federal judge called him a “serial child molester.” As Kylie Cheung wrote in this must-read piece at Jezebel, “Trump has been almost smugly embracing allegedly abusive men via his cabinet picks.” This is a feature, not a bug of Republican politics, and the only proven way in this nascent new Trump era to combat it is to try to publicly embarrass them with their own sick actions back into obscurity.