WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump has selected Rep. Matt Gaetz to be the 87th attorney general of the United States, filling the nation’s top law enforcement position with a Florida lawmaker who has been under investigation by the department he would be overseeing.
The appointment comes at a critical juncture for the Justice Department, which has spent the entirety of the Trump era under attack by the president-elect, who has been charged with four federal felonies in connection with his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss. That case is already winding down.
Trump made the announcement in a Truth Social post, saying Gaetz would “end Weaponized Government, protect our Borders, dismantle Criminal Organizations and restore Americans’ badly-shattered Faith and Confidence in the Justice Department.”
Gaetz has been a staunch supporter of Trump, and has regularly attacked the Justice Department and FBI, both of which he would oversee as attorney general.
The DOJ and FBI investigated Gaetz for possible sex trafficking, but the case ended in 2023 without any charges filed. After the resolution of the investigation, Gaetz called for the abolishment of the FBI.
“I don’t care if it takes every second of our time and every ounce of our energy, we either get this government back on our side or we defund, get rid of, abolish the FBI CDC, ATF,” Gaetz said in 2023 at the Conservative Political Action Conference, referring to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
After the Jan. 6 riot, Gaetz spread the lie that it was antifa, not a pro-Trump mob that believed the former president’s lies about the 2020 election, that attacked the Capitol. One Jan. 6 rioter — one of the first men to breach the Capitol — even posted about Gaetz’s plan to challenge Electoral College votes, which Gaetz had laid out during a Turning Points USA summit in late 2020.
Another Jan. 6 defendant, Brandon Straka, has said he was “regularly” in contact with Gaetz during a Twitter Space in early 2023, as Gaetz was steering the outcome of the House Speaker’s race.
Trump’s announcement on Wednesday is likely to unnerve career prosecutors in the DOJ as well as FBI agents. Many have been waiting in recent days to see who Trump named as his attorney general pick. Gaetz is one of the most vocal critics of both organizations, the two most powerful federal law enforcement agencies in the country.
Trump allies have called for the DOJ to criminally investigate special counsel Jack Smith and New York Attorney General Letitia James.
