Trump stuns with nomination of loyalist Matt Gaetz for attorney-general

Washington: A far-right Republican, who was investigated for sex crimes and was also responsible for a leadership coup that paralysed the US Congress for weeks, has been nominated by Donald Trump to be America’s new attorney general.

In an announcement that sent shock waves across Washington, the president-elect has tapped Florida congressman Matt Gaetz to be his top lawmaker tasked with overhauling what Trump has long viewed as a “weaponised” federal Justice Department.

Republican representative Matt Gaetz speaks to the media outside the US Capitol in Washington.Credit: Bloomberg

Gaetz is a hardcore MAGA loyalist who was responsible for the coup that led to the ousting of then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy, which resulted in the Republican-dominated House of Representatives being unable to govern for weeks.

He was also previously investigated by prosecutors – and was still being examined by an ethics committee in Congress – over allegations that he was part of a scheme that led to the sex trafficking of a 17-year-old girl. He resigned from Congress shortly after the nomination, with AP reporting this will now end the ethics probe.

While Gaetz did not end up being charged, McCarthy believes the case was partly the reason the Floridian moved to oust him – although Gaetz denies this.

Kevin McCarthy last year became the first House Speaker to be removed from office by a vote. Credit: Getty Images

“I’ll give you the truth on why I’m not Speaker,” McCarthy told a forum in May.

“Because one person, a member of Congress, wanted me to stop an ethics complaint because he slept with a 17-year-old; an ethics complaint that started before I ever became Speaker. And that’s illegal, and I’m not going to get in the middle. Did he do it or not? I don’t know, but ethics is looking at it, and there’s other people in jail because of it.”

Gaetz’s nomination stunned many on Capitol Hill, with Democrat Chris Murphy saying that “you could literally hear the jaws dropping to the floor of Republican senators who are now going to be in a position to stand up to Donald Trump in a way that they have been unwilling to”.

Republicans now control the Senate and will have the task of confirming – or rejecting – Trump’s picks.

But despite concerns among some members, the president-elect described the 42-year-old Gaetz as a “deeply gifted and tenacious attorney” who had “distinguished himself in Congress through his focus on achieving desperately needed reform at the Department of Justice”.

“Few issues in America are more important than ending the partisan weaponisation of our Justice System,” said Trump, who was recently convicted of falsifying business records to cover up his own sex scandal with porn star Stormy Daniels.

“Matt will end Weaponised Government, protect our Borders, dismantle Criminal Organisations and restore Americans’ badly shattered Faith and Confidence in the Justice Department,” Trump said on his social media site, Truth Social.

The appointment was the latest in a flurry of cabinet and staff picks, as Trump returned to Washington to meet President Joe Biden following his emphatic election victory against Vice President Kamala Harris.

Donald Trump campaigns with Tulsi Gabbard in Detroit in August.Credit: AP

But Gaetz is another example of a Trump nomination not having traditional experience. If he was confirmed by the Senate, he would effectively have responsibility for more than 100,000 employees, more than 100 US attorney offices, the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Solicitor General’s office.

In another unexpected nomination, Trump also chose former Democrat Tulsi Gabbard to serve as his director of national intelligence, putting a sceptic of support for Ukraine in charge of co-ordinating America’s spy agencies.

Gabbard is an Iraq War veteran who represented Hawaii for the Democrats in the US House from 2013 to 2021. Along with Biden and Harris, she ran to be the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee in the 2020 election before dropping out of the race and endorsing Biden.

However, she left the party in 2022 and became a darling of the MAGA movement and a regular guest on Fox News, serving as a fill-in host on Tucker Carlson’s show before he left the network.

Throughout the campaign, she was one of Trump’s top surrogates, crisscrossing battleground states to help him broaden his appeal among his weakest demographic: suburban women.

She has long been accused of peddling Russian disinformation, including a debunked theory about the US operating biolabs in Ukraine, and has been embroiled in several controversies.

Among them was when she failed to tell Democrats she had met Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad – a key ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin – during a trip to the country where she also dismissed his US-backed opposition as “terrorists”.

“She is now a proud Republican!” Trump said in a statement. “I know Tulsi will bring the fearless spirit that has defined her illustrious career to our Intelligence Community, championing our Constitutional Rights, and securing Peace through Strength.”

Trump also appointed more allies to key staffing roles on Wednesday, including his campaign senior adviser Dan Scavino as an assistant to the president and deputy chief of staff in the White House.

This may not bode well for Australia’s ambassador in the US, Kevin Rudd, after Scavino reposted a congratulatory statement Rudd made to Trump on social media, but adding a GIF of an hourglass.

This was interpreted to mean that Rudd’s time as ambassador may be nearing an end due to disparaging remarks the former prime minister made about Trump while working at an independent think tank years ago.

And House Speaker Mike Johnson won the House Republican nomination to stay on the job, after a morning endorsement from Trump who said he was with the speaker “all the way”. Johnson will face a full House vote next year, AP reported.

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