With the announcement of many of Donald Trump’s new cabinet members, it is clear this administration will be markedly different from Trump’s first administration. Many of the individuals are chosen not for their capabilities to serve within their departments, their backgrounds, or their intellect – their selection is largely based on personal loyalty to President Trump.
No choice better exemplified this than Trump’s nomination of Florida Representative Matt Gaetz to the post of U.S. Attorney General (AG), the chief law enforcement officer of the United States federal government, the principal advisor to the President for all legal matters, and the head of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). A very contentious choice for Attorney General, Gaetz withdrew from consideration after a week, practically entirely due to the House Ethics report.
Beginning in 2018, federal authorities began investigating an associate of Gaetz for public corruption, revealing during the course of the investigation he “repeatedly paid young women — whom he met on a website — to attend parties with him and his friends where they used drugs and had sex” one of whom was a minor; the associate, cooperating with authorities, also revealed that Gaetz “had sex with the same girl, who was 17 at the time, and [he] knew she was being paid”. The DOJ eventually decided not to bring forth any charges against Gaetz in February of 2023, the other associate being sentenced to 11 years in prison.
Following this, the U.S. House Ethics Committee began their own investigation in 2021 investigating claims of sexual misconduct but also “state identification records, improperly using campaign funds for personal use and accepting [banned] gifts” though this was hampered as, according to one official on the Committee, “Gaetz’s combative nature to the committee’s questions [delayed] the fact-finding process”. Some of these reports came from fellow Republican Congressmen while others with immense Conservative credentials detailed how “Every Republican in Washington has an opinion about Matt Gaetz, and 99 percent of those opinions are ‘Keep Matt Gaetz away from my wife/daughter/friend and anyone I care about’”.
Upon Trump’s announcement that Gaetz would be nominated for AG, Gaetz resigned the seat he had just been re-elected to, ahead of a final meeting by the Ethics Committee to release the completed report. After much intense public discussion, in which House Speaker Johnson openly stated he did not want the report released (going so far as to threaten disciplinary action over leaks), the report was released after a month of speculation.
The final report was damning. The bipartisan Committee found Gaetz;
“enticed and procured women to engage in sexual activity for hire and purchased the services of women engaging in sexual activity for hire, in violation of Florida state law … engaged in sexual activity with a 17-year-old girl [and continued sexual contact with her after she turned 18] … used illegal drugs on numerous occasions between 2017 and 2020, in violation of state laws [providing drugs to women to facilitate sexual misconduct] … used the power of his office to assist a woman with whom he was engaged in a sexual relationship [and not a constituent] in obtaining an expedited passport …. [and] continuously sought to deflect, deter, or mislead the Committee in order to prevent his actions from being exposed”.
Alongside this, the report also detailed how Gaetz accepted gifts, travel, and other entertainment which violated House Rules and overall engaged in conduct which “reflected discreditably upon the House”. Furthermore, while Republican members of the Committee protected the release of the report, not a one challenged the report’s final findings.
The full force of the House Ethics report is now known. Its contents will be disseminated far and wide and it will be known that this is the evidence the Ethics Committee uncovered and the assessment they made about their fellow Congressman’s conduct and competency. It will be known that they believe the evidence shows Gaetz committed statutory rape, engaged in illicit drug abuse, obstructed Congress, engaged in prostitution, and gained impermissible gifts and special favors. However, there is another story to this beyond that of a simple crooked Congressman.
This is the individual whom Donald Trump found appropriate enough to appoint to the chief law enforcement post of the United States. This is the individual whom many Republicans defended both in public and in voting sessions. This is the individual whom Speaker Johnson wanted to see confirmed and made Attorney General, knowing full well what the contents of the report contained. This should be incredibly telling of the current state of the Republican Party, a party which proclaims to be committed to the rule of law, the Christian Bible, and family values. While that is what is proclaimed, instead Republicans defended the nomination of an evidenced sexual deviant and drug abuser put forth by a convicted felon and adjudicated rapist.
Finally, this is the evidence that the DOJ and Merrick Garland found unconvincing and problematic in a court of law. While there is a valid argument for that, it is also a very real possibility that Garland’s DOJ did not want to pursue charges for fear of seeming political or upsetting a very vocal political entity. While it is speculative, the DOJ’s past actions regarding Trump’s prosecutions lend credence to this view.
There are no resolutions to this story that the public should feel glad about. A sitting Congressman effectively evaded any real accountability for his actions by resigning his seat, was found competent enough by Republican leadership and their party’s de facto head to hold a cabinet post overseeing the enforcement of the rule of law (despite knowledge about his activities) and will likely face no criminal prosecution for his actions. Perhaps most disheartening is that the governmental department tasked with administering justice and enforcing the rule of law quite possibly failed to hold Gaetz accountable due to political forces and the overall climate, not over a lack of credible evidence.
