Republican senators are warning that former Rep. Matt Gaetz’s (R-Fla.) nomination to serve as President-elect Trump’s attorney general is in serious trouble, even though Republicans will control 53 seats in the upper chamber next year.
Gaetz will get a chance to make his case for why he should lead the Justice Department, but Republican senators warn he faces an “uphill” path to confirmation.
In addition, Republican senators are supporting the call made Thursday by Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) for the House Ethics Committee to release the findings of its investigation of Gaetz for alleged sexual misconduct and illicit drug use.
Two moderate Republican senators, Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) and Susan Collins (Maine), have already expressed strong reservations about Gaetz’s nomination to serve as attorney general.
Four Republicans would need to vote against Gaetz to sink his nomination, and GOP members warn he is likely to encounter resistance from other members of their conference.
“He’s got an uphill climb,” Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) said when asked about Gaetz’s nomination.
Other GOP sources say Gaetz’s nomination is in serious trouble.
Former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), who has a number of friends in the Senate GOP conference, told Bloomberg Television that Gaetz won’t secure the 50 votes he needs to become attorney general.
“Look, Gaetz won’t get confirmed,” he told the outlet. “Everybody knows that.”
Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) told The Hill that McCarthy’s dire prediction is probably spot on.
“I think he’s pretty right, actually,” he said.
But he said Trump’s decision to nominate Gaetz may have a strategic value that his GOP colleagues in the Senate — and political pundits — can’t understand at the moment.
“Donald Trump is a savvy guy. You never know his motivations,” he said.
Cramer said Gaetz is “more than capable of litigating the case for why the [Department of Justice] should be turned on its head” but added that he “just doesn’t have the moral authority” to shake up the department after being embroiled in a federal sex trafficking investigation.
“I’m glad I’m not on Judiciary, put it that way,” he said, alluding to what is expected to be a fierce fight on the committee level over Gaetz.
Some Senate Republican sources are speculating that Trump’s choice of Gaetz to head the Justice Department may be intended to draw scrutiny and opposition away from other controversial nominations.
Two other controversial nominees are Pete Hegseth, the Fox News anchor Trump picked to head the Pentagon, and former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii), Trump’s choice to serve as director of national intelligence despite her past statements defending Syrian President Bashar Assad and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Another bombshell dropped on Senate Republicans on Thursday afternoon, when Trump said he would nominate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has raised concerns about the safety of vaccines as well as fluoride in tap water, to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.
Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), a senior member of the Judiciary Committee, told reporters Thursday that his panel should have access to the findings of the House Ethics Committee investigation of Gaetz.
Cornyn said if the House panel found evidence of a crime, “it would certainly be relevant.”
“I’m not going to speculate what the report shows, but that would certainly be a concern,” he said of evidence of sexual misconduct or illicit drug use.
Murkowski said Wednesday that Gaetz doesn’t pass muster with her.
“I don’t think it’s a serious nomination for attorney general. We need to have a serious attorney general,” she said.
Collins said she was “shocked” to learn of Gaetz’s nomination.
“I’m sure that there will be many, many questions raised at Mr. Gaetz’s hearing, if in fact the nomination goes forward,” she said.
Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), who was elected to take over as Senate majority leader next year, told reporters Wednesday that he won’t know whether Gaetz has the votes for confirmation until the Senate formally receives and begins to review his nomination.
“I don’t know until we start the process, and that’s what we intend to do with him and all the other potential nominees,” he said.
Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), a member of the Judiciary Committee, said Gaetz has “got some work cut out for him” to get enough votes to pass the Senate.
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said his Republican colleagues’ jaws dropped “to the floor” when they learned of Gaetz’s nomination.
“They’re going to be faced with a very difficult decision. Many of them know Matt Gaetz. They know the investigations he’s been under,” he told CNN in an interview. “Matt Gaetz is being nominated because he will be and is today a political agent of Donald Trump. The ramifications of this pick, this particular pick, are stunning.”
Trump’s controversial choices to head the Department of Justice, the Pentagon, the nation’s intelligence agencies, and the Department of Health and Human Services are already causing tension among Senate Republicans.
Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), a loyal Trump ally, warned fellow Republican senators that they should get in line and vote for Trump’s nominees or face political consequences.
“Republicans: If you’re not on the team, get out of the way,” Tuberville told Fox Business Network in an interview.
And he suggested that Republican colleagues who vote against Trump nominees would face primary challengers.
“If you want to get in the way, fine. But we’re going to try to get you out of the Senate too if you try to do that,” he said.
He urged his GOP colleagues to let Trump fill his Cabinet with the people he wants and not to interfere, even though the Constitution provides the Senate with the role of providing advice and consent on executive and judicial branch nominees.
“Everybody’s got an opinion up here, but at the end of the day, President Trump was elected by an enormous vote and he deserves the team around him that he wants,” he argued. “It’s not us to determine that.”
Those statements didn’t sit well with Murkowski, who as a member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, will vote on Kennedy’s nomination to head Health and Human Services.
She said senators have a duty to carefully evaluate nominees and judge their fitness to serve in key positions and not let worries about potential political reverberations drive their decisions.
“There is a process; it’s not discretionary,” she said of the Senate’s duty to provide advice and consent on nominees.
She disagreed with Tuberville’s claim that “it’s not us to determine” whether Trump’s nominees should serve in his Cabinet.
“It’s in the Constitution. It says, ‘This is the role of the Senate,’” she said. “So I feel pretty strongly as a member of the Senate that we have our job to do just as the president has his authorities.
“I will not accept that the United States Senate should just be an extension of the White House. We are our own separate but equal institution,” she said.
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