President-elect Donald Trump announced Thursday evening that he has picked former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi as his next nominee to serve as attorney general, replacing former Rep. Matt Gaetz, who withdrew his nomination earlier in the day.
Gaetz’s withdrawal comes after he told reporters yesterday that he’d had a “great day” of meetings with senators about his nomination. “Folks have been very supportive,” he said. “It’s a great day of momentum for the Trump-Vance administration.” Asked whether he was confident he could get confirmed by the Senate, Gaetz replied, “It was a great day.”
Apparently not. His withdrawal announcement abruptly ends a controversial bid that had been clouded from the get-go by allegations of sexual misconduct and illicit drug use. Gaetz denied wrongdoing, but he reportedly concluded after Wednesday’s meetings that he would not be confirmed. At least five Republicans senators opposed his nomination, more than the three he could afford to lose, according to NBC News.
“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. “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 made clear he expects Bondi to approach the Justice Department’s top job in much the same way Gaetz had promised. “For too long, the partisan Department of Justice has been weaponized against me and other Republicans - Not anymore. Pam will refocus the DOJ to its intended purpose of fighting Crime, and Making America Safe Again,” Trump said in a social media post. “I have known Pam for many years — She is smart and tough, and is an AMERICA FIRST Fighter, who will do a terrific job as Attorney General!”
Gaetz, who resigned from the 118th Congress last week after being nominated, was re-elected to the 119th Congress earlier this month and while it’s unclear whether he could return to the House in January, he is reportedly not expected to do so. In his resignation letter last week, Gaetz wrote: “I hereby resign as U.S. representative of Florida’s 1st Congressional District effective immediately. And 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.”
Trump, in a post on his social media site, said he appreciated Gaetz’s efforts to win approval. “Matt has a wonderful future, and I look forward to watching all of the great things he will do!" the president-elect wrote.
Lawmakers and Justice Department officials are generally relieved that Gaetz, widely despised in Congress, has withdrawn. “This is the only decent thing Matt Gaetz has ever done,” one unnamed House Republican told Axios.
What’s next: At least three other Trump nominees — Pete Hegseth for defense secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for health and human services secretary and Tulsi Gabbard for director of national intelligence — face serious doubts about whether they are fit for the jobs they’d fill.
Gaetz’s withdrawal could also impact those or other Trump staffing picks. The Gaetz nomination was widely seen as the biggest test of how far Republican senators would go to acquiesce to Trump’s wishes. Will GOP senators now feel emboldened to oppose other Trump choices? Or will they fall in line behind other nominees for fear of disrupting Trump’s agenda?
One House Republican predicted to Axios that Gaetz's fate is “indicative of what will happen” with the three other nominees facing serious doubts. On the other hand, there’s this: “The controversy surrounding Gaetz has already served a purpose for Trump — whether intended or not. It has made other Trump choices for cabinet picks appear more reasonable by comparison,” writes Jonathan Swan of The New York Times. “There has been very little attention, for example, given to the fact that Trump intends to nominate his personal lawyer Todd Blanche as deputy attorney general. Blanche is among the potential substitutes for Gaetz.”
The Associated Press and The New York Times both report that Republican senators are rallying around Hegseth despite allegations that he sexually assaulted a woman in 2017. Hegseth says the encounter was consensual and that he was cleared by investigators.
