Tag: appointment

“Going down the list of attorneys general before Barr, you will see people with extensive legal experience, including former prosecutors, Justice Department officials, judges, and state attorneys general. Gaetz, by contrast, is a 42-year-old graduate of William & Mary Law School who briefly worked for a law firm in Fort Walton Beach before entering state politics in 2010, two years after he was admitted to the Florida bar. He served in Florida’s legislature for six years before he was elected to represent the state’s 1st Congressional District in 2016.
Gaetz’s skimpy legal background is not the only reason many people, including Republican colleagues as well as Democrats, were dismayed by Trump’s choice. As Reason’s C.J. Ciaramella noted, Rep. Mike Simpson (R–Idaho) “summed up the general reaction” on Capitol Hill with this response to news of the nomination: “Are you shittin’ me?” When asked what he thought about Gaetz as attorney general, Sen. John Cornyn (R–Texas) was a bit more diplomatic, saying, “I’m trying to absorb all of this.” Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R–Alaska) said Gaetz is “not a serious candidate.” The New York Times describes him as “one of the most reviled members of his conference.””

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“Whatever you make of McCarthy’s ouster, Gaetz’s recklessness was on full display in his defenses of Trump. On the night before former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen was scheduled to testify before the House Oversight Committee in February 2019, Gaetz directed a tweet at him: “Do your wife & father-in-law know about your girlfriends? Maybe tonight would be a good time for that chat. I wonder if she’ll remain faithful when you’re in prison. She’s about to learn a lot…”

When Democrats accused Gaetz of trying to intimidate Cohen, Gaetz defended the tweet. “This isn’t witness tampering,” he said. “This is witness testing. I don’t threaten anybody.” He later reconsidered that response, deleting the tweet and apologizing to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D–Calif.). “While it is important 2 create context around the testimony of liars like Michael Cohen, it was NOT my intent to threaten, as some believe I did,” he wrote. “I’m deleting the tweet & I should have chosen words that better showed my intent. I’m sorry.””

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“Gaetz joined 138 other House Republicans in objecting to electoral votes for Joe Biden. When Trump supporters enraged at Biden’s supposedly phony victory invaded the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, Gaetz sought to blame leftist provocateurs for the riot. “Some of the people who breached the Capitol today were not Trump supporters,” he said on the House floor the next day. “They were masquerading as Trump supporters and, in fact, were members of the violent terrorist group antifa.””

https://reason.com/2024/11/14/matt-gaetzs-personality-irked-his-gop-colleagues-there-are-better-reasons-to-oppose-his-nomination/