US Department of Justice staffers in full-blown freakout

Donald Trump’s decision to nominate Rep. Matt Gaetz for attorney general has Justice Department veterans petrified and warning of a crisis in the department marked by chaos and revenge.

The polarizing Republican lawmaker is already generating resistance on Capitol Hill, suggesting he may not get the votes to win the job. But even if the nomination is doomed, it sends an unmistakable signal about Trump’s expectations for the Justice Department in his second term: He wants a MAGA zealot in the post, one who has shown unbreakable loyalty to the president-elect and wrath for his adversaries, real and perceived.

Gaetz fits that profile to a T. He has never worked as a prosecutor, and his primary interaction with the Justice Department has been as a suspect under investigation for sex crimes. But he has been a bellicose provocateur on Trump’s behalf, even showing up to the former president’s Manhattan hush money trial this spring and posting an allusion to a far-right militant group.

Now, he has been tapped to implement Trump’s oft-stated campaign promise to use the Justice Department to exact retribution against people who opposed him.

“There’s no conceivable justification for nominating somebody this smarmy and this offensive for a position of such significance in this democracy other than to have a puppet and somebody who, as Gaetz has demonstrated, will do anything Trump asks,” said Ty Cobb, a former Trump White House lawyer.

Many rank-and-file Justice Department staffers — who were already dreading what Trump might do at DOJ — were flabbergasted by the Gaetz announcement. “This is completely wild. It’s so out of bounds, it’s just shocking,” said one career DOJ lawyer, who was granted anonymity out of concerns about retaliation. “He’s there for one purpose: to enact retribution. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t have a grand vision about the future of the department. I can’t imagine how this isn’t going to scare people even more.”

Shortly after Trump’s announcement, Gaetz abruptly resigned from his House seat. In his four terms there, Gaetz left a trail of bad blood and scandals. He’s viewed on Capitol Hill as a pro-Trump brawler who has infuriated his own GOP colleagues as much as he’s angered the left. He helped derail former Rep. Kevin McCarthy’s speakership, he has nearly gotten into physical confrontations with colleagues, and he strategized with Trump in the weeks leading up to Jan. 6, 2021, about ways to overturn the 2020 election results. He was investigated for sex trafficking of a minor, though he was never charged and he fiercely denied the allegations.

“Generally, nominating reputed sex traffickers for the highest law-enforcement job in the land is not a good idea,” said Marc Short, the longtime chief of staff to former Vice President Mike Pence.

Gaetz is also an unorthodox choice on policy. He has advocated for decriminalizing marijuana, called on Trump and President Joe Biden to pardon former NSA contractor Edward Snowden and pushed for restrictions on a federal domestic wiretapping authority that the FBI says prevents terrorist attacks and foreign espionage.

In his announcement, Trump hailed Gaetz as a “deeply gifted and tenacious attorney.”

“Matt will root out the systemic corruption at DOJ, and return the Department to its true mission of fighting Crime, and upholding our Democracy and Constitution,” Trump said.

But there were early doubts about Gaetz’s confirmation prospects even in the soon-to-be-GOP-controlled Senate. And the pick came as a surprise even to many Trump allies.

In the weeks leading up to the election and days since, Gaetz had not been seen as a contender for attorney general. The choice suggests that Trump may have passed over some of the conventional-wisdom candidates, like Utah Sen. Mike Lee (a former federal prosecutor and a Supreme Court clerk) and business-friendly former regulator Jay Clayton.

“I thought the worst we could get was Paxton,” the career DOJ lawyer said, referring to another reputed contender for the top job, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.

In rejecting prominent conservatives with more typical pedigrees for the job, Trump eradicated any hope that the Justice Department in his second term might resemble the Justice Department of his first term, which was mostly helmed by Republicans with extensive and traditional law enforcement backgrounds, like Jeff Sessions, William Barr and Rod Rosenstein.

“If there were any people left who were sort of holding on to the idea that it’ll basically be like Trump’s first term, where the people who are really in charge of the department are more or less these sort of old guard Republican stalwarts … they’ve now been disabused of that notion,” former federal prosecutor Jonathan Kravis said. “Because even if it’s not Matt Gaetz, even if he doesn’t get confirmed, it’s going to be someone else like him.”

One former Trump DOJ official, granted anonymity to speak candidly, called the Gaetz nomination “fucking appalling.”

“The attorney general should not be a provocateur,” the former official added. “The problem with a person like that is he derives too much enjoyment from chaos and burning the place down, and those just would be the last traits you’d want in someone in charge of federal law enforcement.”