2021 was when Rep. Matt Gaetz became something more than just a random, Butthead-looking Florida congressman. His first whiff of national fame was when he suddenly produced an “adopted” Cuban son and claimed that he’d raised the then-19-year-old since Nestor was 12. That was when people began paying more attention to Gaetz in general, and as it turns out, the guy is unsurprisingly a massive sleaze. He’s been under federal investigation and the subject of a House Ethics inquiry for multiple, credible reports of statutory rape, human trafficking and abuse. Then he popped up at the RNC over the summer, full of Botox and shrieking the MAGA talking points. Well, Donald Trump wants Gaetz to be the next Attorney General.
President-elect Donald Trump has chosen Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida to serve as his attorney general.
“Few issues in America are more important than ending the partisan Weaponization of our Justice System,” Trump wrote Wednesday in a post on his Truth Social platform. “Matt will end Weaponized Government, protect our Borders, dismantle Criminal Organizations and restore Americans’ badly-shattered Faith and Confidence in the Justice Department.”
Gaetz said in a post on X that it would “be an honor to serve” in the role.
The congressman remains under investigation by the House Ethics Committee for sexual misconduct, with the bipartisan committee saying in a rare statement in June that some of the allegations against Gaetz “merit continued review.” Being probed are allegations that Gaetz may have “engaged in sexual misconduct and illicit drug use, accepted improper gifts, dispensed special privileges and favors to individuals with whom he had a personal relationship, and sought to obstruct government investigations of his conduct,” the committee said at the time.
Honestly, though… what did you guys expect? It’s awful, tacky, criminal and appalling. It’s also completely on-brand for Donald Trump. I’m surprised the AG pick wasn’t a lot worse, truly. Trump could have dusted off Rudy Giuliani or made one of his unhinged personal lawyers the AG. A really weird thing is that Trump got Republican majorities in the House and Senate, and he keeps choosing sitting senators and representatives for his administration. Anyway, there’s a lot of talk about how Senate Republicans are balking and how they might not even be able to confirm Gaetz. Hilariously, I don’t think it will matter.
Interestingly enough, Gaetz resigned from Congress just hours after Trump’s announcement, so clearly he’s not worried about making it through Senate confirmation hearings. Soon after he resigned, the House Ethics Committee said that they were just days away from releasing their years-long inquiry into Gaetz’s many crimes.
Hope it's wrong, but I'm hearing through the grapevine about this bonkers plan: Trump would adjourn both Houses of Congress under Article II, section 3, and then recess-appoint his Cabinet.
— Ed Whelan (@EdWhelanEPPC) November 13, 2024
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red and YouTube.
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- United States Representative Matt Gaetz (Republican of Florida), speaks during an Antitrust, Commercial and Administrative Law Subcommittee hearing, on Capitol Hill, in Washington, Wednesday, July 29, 2020, on “Online platforms and market power. Examining the dominance of Amazon, Facebook, Google and Apple” Credit: Graeme Jennings / Pool via CNP | usage worldwide,Image: 563529598, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: UK and US ONLY – DIRECT SALES ONLY – Fee Payable Upon Reproduction – For queries contact Avalon.red – sales@avalon.red London: +44 (0) 20 7421 6000 Los Angeles: +1 (310) 822 0419 Berlin: +49 (0) 30 76 212 251, Model Release: no, Credit line: Graeme Jennings / DPA Picture Alliance / Avalon
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- United States Representative Matt Gaetz (Republican of Florida) questions U.S. Attorney General William Barr during a House Judiciary Committee hearing on Capitol Hill on July 28, 2020 in Washington, DC. In his first congressional testimony in more than a year, Barr faced questions from the committee about his deployment of federal law enforcement agents to Portland, Oregon, and other cities in response to Black Lives Matter protests; his role in using federal agents to violently clear protesters from Lafayette Square near the White House last month before a photo opportunity for President Donald Trump in front of a church; his intervention in court cases involving Trump’s allies Roger Stone and Michael Flynn; and other issues. Credit: Chip Somodevilla / Pool via CNP | usage worldwide,Image: 563538116, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: UK and US ONLY – DIRECT SALES ONLY – Fee Payable Upon Reproduction – For queries contact Avalon.red – sales@avalon.red London: +44 (0) 20 7421 6000 Los Angeles: +1 (310) 822 0419 Berlin: +49 (0) 30 76 212 251, Model Release: no, Credit line: Chip Somodevilla / DPA Picture Alliance / Avalon
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- United States Representative Matt Gaetz (Republican of Florida) disagrees with remarks by US Representative Cedric Richmond (Democrat of Louisiana) during the House Judiciary Committee markup of H.R. 7120, the “George Floyd Justice in Policing Act of 2020,” on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC on Wednesday, June 17, 2020. The bill reforms policing in the United States, including provisions to stop police misconduct, and the use of excessive force. Credit: Kevin Dietsch / Pool via CNP | usage worldwide
I always think he’s one of the Osmonds…
We’ve got Matt Gaetz for AG — might as well nominate Diddy and Harvey Weinstein as deputy directors for the DOJ. Tulsi Gubbard, a Putin bestie, as Director of National Intelligence, and a Fox News buffoon Pete Hegseth as head of the Pentagon. And of course, how can I forget the Christian fundamentalists war hawk rock stars Mike Huckabee, Kristi Noem, and Marco Rubio in charge of terrorizing citizens of this country while blasting the Middle East into oblivion? I’m done for today and today has barely started.
Shocking picks!!!
Hegseth is more dangerous than “Fox news host” implies. He doesn’t think women should serve, hates DEI (in one of our most diverse institutions), and is covered with far right tattoos. Trump is also talking about purging generals! This is really, really bad.
Yeah. I’ve seen clips and talking points. He wants to fire all the “woke” military leadership and wants masculinity and male dominance back in the armed forces. He’s stupid and dangerous — 2 awful trait combinations. People are saying moderate Republicans won’t back him. What moderate Republicans? Trump will bully his nomination through. I’m hoping services members will revolt and protest, but doubt it, as many of them are Republican themselves.
It gets worse. I just saw that Trump intends to name RFK Jr. head of HHS. No more vaccines. We’re literally all gonna die. 😱
With rotten teeth.
I learned a new word today: kakistocracy.
Actually the word was: kakistocratic.
Which means government by the worst, least qualified or most unscrupulous people. George Conway (who was offered appointment in tRump’s 1st stab at the country) says in his first term he surrounded himself with all these people with fab degrees, then he wound up hating them because they were smarter than him, and they weren’t loyal. This time around he said it’s going to be all kakistocratic picks.
Other people say the Gaetz mention is a feint. Which allowed him to resign the House and avoid the worst brunt of the bipartisan report that was expected to be released Friday. Even if it leaks, the impact w/b less.
Every day the choices get worse. Don’t know if you have a separate post planned for Tulsi Gabbard but naming an actual Russian asset as Director of National Intelligence is probably even worse than a human trafficker as AG. It’s at least as bad. I was previously agnostic, but on the day after the election, I finally concluded there is no God.
Yes Gabbard is by far the worst of all of these. Wondering if Gaetz is being used to distract from hers. I think he will get them all in (and they are all terrible) but Gabbard is by far the scariest.
Honestly, nothing surprises me with this SH!TSHOW of a presidency. It’s gonna get a lot worse. I’m just waiting for the trumpnazis to complain about what they voted for so I can throw it in their faces.
They’re already complaining! They are gobsmacked by the unqualified, dangerous cabinet picks. It’s like they voted for Trump without knowing a thing about him. Gotta admit I’m kinda enjoying it!
Tulsi is a Russian asset but then again so is Cheeto. I just hope the other countries in the Five Eyes have a way to hide intelligence that Putin wants to see.
side note– but what does God have to do with the election of Trump? Enough US citizens voted for him. We bring s**t into our world ourselves; both good and bad are from human actions and from the human perspective. Afaik, God never built a wall or a detention center
Smoke and mirrors and freeing up seats. Yay.
The majority of the cabinet appointments have been horrifying so far. It’s like he’s intentionally seeking out the worst humans to run the currently free world. There are definitely dark times ahead. Best wishes to all of us who did not vote for faciism.
The US ceased to be the leader of the free world on Nov 5. We are a nation with no credibility. Sadly, we still have the economic and military might to bully the free world. But we are not leaders.
Yeah, these type of decisions, these appointments of the worst of the worst is EXACTLY what the majority of American voters chose … in the Oval Office, in the US Senate and in the House.
This is EXACTLY what Drumpf said he was going to do, and apparently 70+ million people said ‘Great! I’ll take that and a bag o’fries’
It’s going to be 4+ long years of ‘always incredibly disappointing, never surprising’.
Winter is coming, in more ways than one. I hope there are enough grown ups left standing (esp in the Pentagon where ‘blow the world to bits’ capability lives … but I fear Trump saw what Bibi is doing in Gaza and elsewhere and is licking his butthole lips to do the same to NATO and right here at home)
I think Putin is telling him who to pick and is laughing his ass off…if Putin even has the ability to laugh.
He sort of tried the smart, competent route the first time and they all quit because he wouldn’t listen to them and they all eventually told the world (sadly an effort in futility ) what an incompetent petulant impulsive idiot he really is.
He wants people he can bully, that he thinks are dumber than him, and since he probably owes literally billions to Putin and various other oligarchs and shady Middle East characters, knows they’ll also be pleased. We are all f@&$!!
I’m hopeful that there is a massive bipartisan sting operation under foot. Maybe I’m in denial, I’m coping the best I can. If the convicted felon, rapist, racist, treasonous traitor is in place by inauguration then I’ll accept the full weight of the impending hellscape.
That hope is the only thing keeping me going. It’s not over until inauguration.
I’m up for believing this. Any port in a storm.
Inauguration is coming. I know we’re all trying to cope the best we can, but he’s going to be inaugurated.
This strange hope that “someone or someones” will save us from this nightmare is fascinating to me. We thought Mueller would save us. We thought the impeachments would save us, we thought him losing in 2020 would save us. Nothing will save us. He will be inaugurated and he’ll bring the worst people in the world with him. Any “investigation” would be shot down when he becomes president in 2 months. We are not being saved, we are going to have to live with this and hopefully come out of it still alive.
Yep. American voters have nobody to blame but themselves for this. This was our historical moment, and we quailed in the face of it. Those who voted for him or stayed home will have to live with the consequences the same as everybody else who tried to stop it. The difference is we see what’s coming. Time to stop being in denial that the fall of America is here. Decide how you will prepare for it.
Remember all these names, because your descendants will be studying them in history class. Some will stand trial in international court. Others will disappear into non extradition countries never to be heard from again.
Unfortunately, our country has a bit of an allergy when it comes to international justice, MightyMolly: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_and_the_International_Criminal_Court#:~:text=The%20United%20States%20is%20not,Court%20(ICC)%20in%202002.&text=As%20of%20February%202024%2C%20124%20states%20are%20members%20of%20the%20Court.
Remember the Republiscums being shocked and appalled about all sorts of f*ckery only to fall in line? Trump et al have been crystal clear about the type of people they want in government. So far, no one mentioned should be there, which is actually amazing in a horror movie way if you take a detached look at the situation. Do we expect the House, Senate, and Courts to grow a spine or do we expect them to talk about how awful XYZ is and nominate these disasters anyway? In your classic “good v evil” story, it’s an excellent time to be the bad guy.💔🤢
That was an interesting read. I never expected to agree with Ron Paul but “ The United States must either remain a constitutional republic or submit to international law, because it cannot do both.”
If we are no longer a constitutional republic, and I fear we may not be, we must submit to international law. There are other mechanisms for the US to be held accountable for war crimes. I’m not sure there’s much that can be done in international court about the impending deportations and almost certain detention centers where people will simply disappear. But the war crimes we’re about to commit in the middle east and the western democracy of the Ukraine should be addressed in international court.
What kind of history books will we even have after this administration? The Dept. of Ed. is toast – Project 2025 wants to get rid of teaching what actually happened. I’m buying up history books and at risk to be banned books now so my daughter can read them.
Now we’ll have our own Prince Andrew. Oh, joy!
I can’t criticize the monarchy anymore. We have our own king! And he’s a f**king mess.
No joke, after reading about Gaetz and Gabbard’s appointments, I started prepping. For years I rolled my eyes at those nutters buying up thousands of rolls of paper towels and cans of food, but you know, I was wrong. They were right.
I have canceled some subscriptions and salon services. I’m planning to aggressively save money. There may be a brief period of economic bubble because people believe they’re about to get richer, but I’m very worried about what happens when it bursts.
So the man who kept confidential national security documents in a bathroom on a Florida golf course, is appointing a criminal to protect us from criminals, and a Russian asset to be protect us from Russians. And the new speaker of the Senate just gave a speech about how he’s alllll about supporting Trump and his agenda. I can’t.
They’re all traitors.
My gut feeling is the others will get confirmed but maybe not Gaetz.
I really thought all these appointments would be shadowy figures we’ve never heard of or don’t know much about, but he’s just picking people who have shown public support and are loud about it, But maybe won’t be that effective? They’re all gonna be awful, but they also won’t last. There will be a lot of clashing and back biting, And maybe like the first term ghouls, they’ll all end up quitting, in jail, or broke and disbarred.
These people are all being rewarded for publicly supporting him, you’re absolutely right. That’s why they were willing to do it. The issue, however, is that the flip side of public rewards is also public humiliation. Half of these people are going to be gone via a post on X within 2 years, maybe sooner.
These are people known for their egos not their competence and not their knowledge of government, with maybe the exception of Rubio and Huckabee (not that they’re super competent, but they’re more experienced than Elon Musk, you know?) These people don’t play well in the sandbox with others, especially Trump. Some of them will last the whole administration but not all of them.
Cheeto wants compromised people he can control.
That’s what I was thinking. In his first term he churned through staff at an amazing speed, later calling his choices–his own choices– ‘stupid’ & etc. I lost count at the number of chiefs of staff he had; there were also more than one joint chiefs, IIRC. Not going to look this stuff up as it will all be played out again.
All the people put forward for positions in the new Trump Administration so far are major whack jobs. We can only hope that they’re too crazy to get anything done.
When ‘Little Marco’ Rubio is the pick of the litter you know it’s a pretty bad round up of awful, unqualified people (in temperament, character, intelligence and experience)
I have been called a baby eater by Q true believing magat morons and a full blow human trafficing pedophile is gonna be the the next AG. They are all just so stupid. F#ck. F#ck. F#ck.
He looks like The Joker spackled in pancake makeup.
He basically is, but worse.
Read yesterday that one of the theories of why Gaetz resigned is because the report concerning the investigation about him was coming out. With him no longer in Congress they would not have to make it public. Who knows what they found. Had to look up if Gaetz was an actual attorney, as with Trump’s other picks, it wouldn’t have surprised me if he had chosen that wasn’t an attorney.
He graduated law school, and passed the bar, but has minimal experience with actual legal practice. He has zero experience as a prosecutor and is being named to the highest position as chief law enforcement officer of the US federal government. It is absolutely absurd.
Until the 1970s, women who did not conform to the patriarchy were also psychiatrically hospitalised. I fear that these very things will resurface and be taken up again. The fear and anger among liberal, independent women is already great and in no time all positions of power in the USA will be occupied by radical right-wing forces who regard the female body as property and will systematically abolish human rights for women. Gaetz is exactly the right man for these “reforms”
I’m not clear on the laws in FL, but House Speaker Johnson said that following Gaetz resignation, he spoke w/ Gov Desantis about a special election to fill his seat (since the GOP lost a few other House seats to trump appointments). They need to stay above 218 to mitigate the bickering within the fractured GOP membership.
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Gaetz is not popular in b/c of his maneuverings to oust Speaker McCarthy. One Republican House member is on record about Gaetz boasting about his drug-fueled sex parties. I hope one of them “leaks” the report.
Emcee3, they have to accomplish it in 8 weeks so that this person can be sworn in on January 3 and be available for the state’s electors votes on January 6. I don’t know how they think that will happen.
I’ve been getting bits and pieces about the Alfie Oakes warrants. I wouldn’t assume anything at this point. I have a feeling that there is a lot of investigating going on. I think, too, that other intelligence agencies around the world have a lot of info that they’re probably giving to the US.
Personally, after the first few picks, I’ve been laughing. It’s obvious to me that a circus is being created. They certainly have plenty of clowns.
Trump’s cabinet is the mother of all freak shows.
It really is – one clown after the other.
Now that I think about it, we’re making freaks and clowns a disservice. At leadt, they have an excuse. 🤦🏻♀️
Who’s next? Marjorie Taylor Green for NASA? She’s got some opinions on space lasers. #ThisIsTheBadPlace
That’s right, her interest alone qualifies her far more than anyone else.
I’m waiting to see where he puts Ted Cruz….
Joe Rogan as Director of Communications?
Kid Rock and Ted Nugent to head the National Endowment for the Arts.
The head of FEMA….probably
I’m actually all for this because it’ll get her out of congress and she won’t last more than 6 months.
When you have an adjudicated sexual abuser and convicted felon as President, can we seriously be surprised when he nominates someone who has been under federal investigation for sex trafficking minors and is currently under investigation by the House Ethics Committee for sexual misconduct and obstruction allegations?! This is who MAGA is – let’s get the most unqualified, corrupt, and amoral people possible to fill up the administration 🙄
To think this is the party that self-identifies as the party of law and order – LMAO
Let’s hope the Ethics Committee releases their report anyway…
Someone posted that this is what you can expect from the best friend of Jeffrey Epstein.
I’m not shocked I’m shocked that the main stream media acts shocked. They know this is trump, who I believe many of them voted for. Approximately half of the country is shocked and saying I told you so. All because they didn’t want a black qualified woman to run the country.
This is probably why he wanted recess appointments. I think even a fair number of Republicans may be put off by this choice.
My God. My only hope is that because he’s picked a bunch of unqualified fools for these positions, stupidity rules the day and his administration never takes off beneath the weight of all the crippling incompetence.
I’m holding onto that hope too. I know it’s going to be ugly and bad things will happen, people will suffer, but this is not a well oiled machine capable of any kind of efficiency.
Which sign of the apocalypse is this? Seriously it’s like the worst of society are coming out of the woodwork and being rewarded for their evilness. Like these are appointments under a communist regime instead of a supposed democracy. How can all these people pass security checks if they are being investigated
Forgive me if this isn’t coherent, I’m not sleeping well (gee, I wonder why). But I’ve decided that I am no longer wasting energy being appalled at any of his personnel choices. I care WHAT they are going to try to do more than WHO is going to do it. And really, anyone he was going to select was going to be their own special kind of deplorable anyway, so who cares. And it’s good that they are laughably underqualified and grossly inept. That way the civil servants may have a better chance of holding them off as long as possible.
kak·i·sto·cra·cy
noun
government by the least suitable or competent citizens of a state.
That’s what we’re getting. And putting Gabbard in charge of national intelligence is a massive gift to Putin. It’s appalling.
Trump is as bad as Tulsi, maybe worse. He will sell all the secrets not just intelligence
For someone who ran a sort of outsider, insurgent campaign, it feels notable that Agent Orange has appointed so many established politicians to his cabinet. And also that he’s not even trying to get them confirmed even with a majority, but planning to use recess appointments- huge red flags all around!
It also makes me wonder if he is also instilling some loyalists on the legislative side by appointments, maybe people that red state governors can put in position right away that ordinarily wouldn’t survive a primary. I mean, I shudder to think about it, but with Geatz and possibly Rubio working for the White House, couldn’t the governor of Florida nominate Junior? Or Ivanka?
A veritable car of clowns, commonly referred to as a CLOWN CAR.
This extremism reinforces how timid the Democrats were. Too much footering around wondering what the media impact would be if they took bold action. The classic example being the long delay in kicking off the various investigations into trump’s actions. Once the second impeachment and removal failed, it should have been a top priority. Too afraid of looking ‘political’? They were accused of it anyway.
Those in here who were trying to defend your Trump-voting friends and family members. Still defending them? Bueller? Bueller?
I’ve wondered about this too.
Life is too short for interacting with MAGATs — religious extremists, MRAs, xenophobic misogynists, science denialists, antivaxxers and other esoteric quacks.
No matter if it’s (close) family, co-workers or neighbors. There’s no point and no excuse.
Trump wants AG to do everything he says. So, it is best to pick someone that you can blackmail. If Matt gets the job and at any point tries to push back about something or says no, Trump can open an criminal investigation against him. I am sure his other candidates will have similar weak points too. It sounds like a russian secret service playbook.
In all of this I have noticed the daughter of T is nowhere to be seen. Haven’t seen her by his side. He seems…lonely this time. I even think he half assed the campaign. Like he didn’t even believe he had any chance to win. It was weird from an outside perspective. I think he is surrounding himself with people that stroke his ego. And I think someone is positioning him in a way to impeach him and put vp as president. Mark my words. He won’t last a year as president. All these games are played by greater underbelly forces.
…aaaand commence us Canadians prepping our homes to receive American refugees and praying we don’t have it just as bad here. Not even joking. Stay safe American siblings. Love and strength to you all.