Amid claims of sexual misbehavior, Matt Gaetz withdraws his bid to become attorney general
On Thursday, former Representative Matt Gaetz, a Republican from Florida, declared that he will not be running for president-elect Donald Trump's attorney general position.
"My meetings with senators yesterday went really well. I value their insightful comments as well as the amazing support from so many people. Just one week after Trump declared he would nominate Gaetz to the role, Gaetz wrote in a post on X, "Even though the momentum was strong, it is evident that my confirmation was unjustly becoming a distraction to the crucial 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," Gaetz added.
In a post on TruthSocial, Trump praised Gaetz and said he had been doing "very well" in the confirmation process.
"Matt Gaetz's recent efforts to obtain approval to serve as Attorney General are deeply appreciated. Although he was doing extremely well, he did not want to cause any trouble for the Administration, which he really admires. "I'm excited to see all the amazing things Matt will accomplish in the future," the president-elect added.
Trump appointed Gaetz as his AG last week, but he faced several obstacles during the confirmation process, including a prior probe by the department he was selected to oversee.
Trump’s selection of Gaetz brought fresh scrutiny to previous allegations against the former congressman, who faced an investigation by the Justice Department that involved allegations of sex trafficking and sex with a minor.
Gaetz has vehemently denied those allegations and the investigation ended with the Justice Department electing not to charge Gaetz.
He resigned from his position in the House last week, effectively ending a separate House Ethics Committee investigation into him.
The committee had been looking into the allegations against Gaetz on and off since 2021. Committee members met Wednesday to discuss whether to release the report on their investigation but did not come to an agreement.
It’s unclear what his decision to pull his name out of consideration for Trump’s Cabinet means for his congressional seat.
In his resignation, Gaetz stated that he would not swear allegiance to the next Congress. He declared that he had no plans to run for the Attorney General post in the Trump administration by taking the oath of office for the same position in the 119th Congress.
Trump and Vice President-elect Vance remained steadfast in their support of Gaetz in spite of everything. Trump even "heavily worked the phones" to rally support for Gaetz, and Vance spent the entire Wednesday on Capitol Hill meeting with senators who wanted to hear Gaetz's response to the accusations.
Following Trump's appointment of Gaetz to head the Justice Department, several senators expressed doubt that he would have enough votes to receive Senate confirmation by a majority.
Additionally, Sens. John Cornyn, R-Texas, and Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, informed NBC News that the topic of the accusations came up during their meeting with Gaetz on Wednesday.
Ernst claimed that during their conversation, Gaetz personally brought up the accusations.
“He volunteered that,” she said, “I’m not going to go any more than that.”
“He was very forthcoming, but that’s all I’m going to say because he will go through a very fair confirmation process with Senator Grassley, and I think a lot of this will get flushed out then,” Ernst added. "I’m just reserving judgment.”
When asked if the allegations against Gaetz came up, Cornyn said, “All I said to him was the--that there are not going to be any secrets here.”
