Trump baits the new Senate majority

It would be difficult to find a congressmember, even one without a law degree, less suitable to run the Department of Justice than Gaetz. He is a vulgar performative politician and troll, not an official who can be plausibly presented as interested in the serious requirements of good government.

Immediately after Gaetz’s nomination, the phrase “dead on arrival” was widely used to describe its condition in the Senate, even by people who keenly support Trump and his agenda. One hopes they are right.

It is probably not a coincidence that Gaetz resigned his congressional seat immediately after the nomination became official, a move perhaps intended to forestall publication of a House Ethics Committee report into allegations against him, which he vehemently denies, of sex trafficking and sex with a minor.

It is impossible to imagine a vote to confirm coming from outgoing Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who devoted a speech at the American Enterprise Institute annual dinner on Nov. 12 to the importance of defending institutions and the principles on which they are built. Or from Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Susan Collins (R-ME), and other centrists. Thus, the GOP majority vaporizes. Trump’s nomination of Gaetz is a blunder.

Unless, however, Gaetz is being offered as a sacrificial lamb or being used as a stalking horse to make it harder for the Republican majority to reject other nominations, such as of Pete Hegseth for the Pentagon or Tulsi Gabbard for director of national intelligence. Both stunned Washington but are made to seem tame by comparison with that of Gaetz.

Or, unless Trump’s idea is to put the nominees in place for the duration of the next Congress by recess appointment, as is provided for in the Constitution. Gaetz’s nomination certainly prompted a review of Trump’s decision to inject himself into the Senate Republican leadership elections by saying the new majority leader would have to allow recess appointments. That’s how he can get nominees past Senate objections. 

Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL), who ran for majority leader explicitly as a Trump lieutenant, made it plain he’d do whatever the new president wanted. But even Sen. John Thune (R-SD), who thankfully beat Scott, said he’d consider allowing recess appointments. Now perhaps he knows why Trump raised the matter.

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But Thune has pledged to work with Trump, not for him. He was the right choice for majority leader and has admirable deputies in his leadership team who, while they also want to press ahead with the agenda for which the new president has a clear mandate, are likely to want to protect their institution from encroachment by the executive. They surely resent being treated as dupes, which is a possible interpretation of the sequence of recent events.

When the president’s party is also the majority party on Capitol Hill, Congress’s constitutional duty of oversight is usually largely ignored, as much by Republicans as by Democrats. But the new Republican leadership cannot be expected to press hard for Gaetz’s confirmation. They probably wouldn’t succeed in getting him to the Department of Justice even if they tried.