Trump was on a roll. Then he picked Matt Gaetz for attorney-general

Donald Trump has been riding high since his decisive win over Kamala Harris, working at a breakneck pace to name loyalists to top jobs in his incoming administration while basking in the glow of his victory.

Last weekend, the president-elect received a hero’s welcome from the crowd at a packed UFC fight at New York’s Madison Square Garden. Earlier this week, he flew to Brownsville, Texas, to watch a SpaceX Starship rocket launch with billionaire confidant Elon Musk.

But by the end of the week, the party was over. Former congressman and Trump loyalist Matt Gaetz on Thursday afternoon withdrew his name for consideration to become US attorney-general amid swirling allegations of sexual misconduct and a growing sense on Capitol Hill that he would not make it through a gruelling Senate confirmation process.

Gaetz’s decision handed the president-elect his first major political setback since winning another four years in the White House, forcing him to scramble to find a replacement for a top cabinet post.

By Thursday evening, Trump tapped Pam Bondi, another Floridian and the former attorney-general of the Sunshine State, to lead the justice department. But the Gaetz flop has managed to consume some precious early political capital for Trump.

In a post on X, Gaetz — who has denied all allegations of wrongdoing — said his nomination was “unfairly becoming a distraction to the critical work of the Trump/Vance nomination”. Trump in turn praised the former Florida lawmaker in a post on his Truth Social platform, saying the conservative had a “wonderful future” ahead of him.

Gaetz’s sudden withdrawal from consideration has left Washington speculating whether other controversial Trump picks could fail, and prompted panic among some Trump allies.

Questions have already been raised about whether selections like defence secretary nominee Pete Hegseth — the former Fox News host who has proposed firing top military leaders and faced an allegation of sexual assault — or Trump’s pick for director of national intelligence Tulsi Gabbard — a former Democratic congresswoman who has praised Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad and been accused of parroting Kremlin propaganda — could face a similar fate on Capitol Hill.

Hegseth has never been charged with a crime and has denied all wrongdoing. But like Gaetz, he has spent this week on Capitol Hill in an aggressive push to try and drum up support from lawmakers for his nomination, accompanied by vice-president-elect JD Vance.

The failure of Trump’s number-one pick for attorney-general to progress to even the early stages of a Senate vetting process is arguably the biggest blow to the his efforts to build an inner circle that will carry out his aggressive domestic agenda.

The DoJ is central to Trump’s plans to seek “retribution” for individuals he sees as wronged — including himself. He has also threatened to appoint a special prosecutor to “go after” outgoing US President Joe Biden and his family.

Many legal experts and Trump allies had expected that if confirmed, Gaetz — one of Trump’s fiercest defenders and one of the most vocal critics of the DoJ under Biden — would have few qualms about taking orders from the incoming president.

Gaetz made headlines last year when he told an audience of conservative activists that he and other Trump allies would bring the DoJ and other federal agencies to “heel”.

“We either get this government back on our side or we defund, and get rid, abolish . . . every last one of them,” he said in March 2023.

Steve Bannon, a former top Trump adviser, earlier this month told NBC News that the president-elect “is going to hit the justice department with a blowtorch and Matt Gaetz is that torch”.

As he announced that Bondi would be replacing Gaetz as the nominee for the justice department, Trump suggested she was very much aligned with his plans.

“For too long, the partisan Department of Justice has been weaponised against me and other Republicans — Not any more. Pam will refocus the DOJ to its intended purpose of fighting Crime, and Making America Safe Again,” Trump said on Truth Social, adding that he had known her for years and she was an “America first fighter”.

Before Bondi was chosen, Paul Butler, professor at Georgetown Law, said the “working assumption” should be that Trump was seeking retribution and “will nominate for attorney-general a person who’s willing to do that”.

Bondi, who is known to be a close ally of Susie Wiles, who will serve as chief of staff in Trump’s second term, is expected to be more easily confirmed by the Senate.

Since leaving the Florida attorney-general’s office in 2019, she has been working as a lobbyist at Ballard Partners, which has offices in Florida and in Washington and has close ties to Trump’s inner circle.

But Bondi is not a moderate: after the 2020 election, she backed Trump’s claims that the race against Biden had been rigged. She will now retrace Gaetz’s steps to Capitol Hill to lobby senators for her own confirmation in the next few days and weeks.

But even if she has an easier time than Gaetz, the drama surrounding him has offered the first opening for Democrats to attack Trump for falling short in tapping the best to lead his second government.

“A qualified nominee for the highest position in law enforcement in America must be honest and complete in disclosing his background. Mr Gaetz did not meet that standard,” said Dick Durbin, the Senate judiciary committee chair, on Thursday afternoon.

Additional reporting by Alex Rogers in Palm Beach