Alabama’s two U.S. Senators are giving very different answers on Donald Trump’s pick for Attorney General. Newly resigned Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz was under a House Ethics investigation for alleged sex crimes. Alabama U.S. Senator Tommy Tuberville says any Senator who opposes Gaetz will be voted out of office. The State’s junior Senate Katie Britt told reporters “I’ve got nothing for you” when asked about the Gaetz nomination which shocked the DOJ.
Just hours after Republican Sen. John Thune was elected as the incoming Senate majority leader, President-elect Donald Trump presented him with one of his first tests — an announcement that he intends to nominate Gaetz as attorney general. Two months before Trump takes office, he is challenging congressional Republicans to defy him as he says he will nominate potentially controversial figures to his Cabinet, including Gaetz, former Democratic House Rep. Tulsi Gabbard for director of national intelligence, and conservative media personality Pete Hegseth for secretary of defense.
Gaetz is one of the more universally disliked members of Congress, including among GOP lawmakers after he led the effort to oust House Speaker Kevin McCarthy last year. He has spent his congressional career agitating against the Justice Department and has been under a House Ethics investigation probing whether he engaged in sexual misconduct and illicit drug use, accepted improper gifts and sought to obstruct government investigations of his conduct. Gaetz denies the allegations.
Asked about the nomination as he left a Senate vote, Thune smiled and declined to answer. "That's probably a good question for the chairman of the Judiciary Committee," he said.
An hour earlier, the likely incoming chairman of the Judiciary panel, Republican Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa, also deflected, saying he doesn't know Gaetz but will look at the nomination. "Don't ask me any other questions," Grassley said.
It's a familiar posture for Republican senators who have lived through the last eight years dodging questions about Trump and defending him, even after he tried to overturn his election defeat in 2020 and his supporters violently stormed the U.S. Capitol. But the stakes are even higher now that he has been decisively elected to a second term. Congressional Republicans have rallied intensely around him, betting their political futures on his success.
