By the eighth day — a political speed record — it was obvious to Donald Trump that there were not enough senators willing to hold their noses and make Matt Gaetz attorney general.
Gaetz got the message and withdrew. He said his nomination was “unfairly” distracting from the transition, but there was nothing unfair about it. He was the worst nominee for that office ever.
News reports said Sen. Mitch McConnell, the outgoing GOP leader, stood up to Trump, at long last, as Sens. Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski and others began peeling away, with more to follow.
Thanks to them all, but the Senate’s work isn’t done, either in regard to that office or others that Trump plans to populate with radical loyalists.
Gaetz out, Bondi in
Pam Bondi, Trump’s new nominee for attorney general, is one of them.
She doesn’t have Gaetz’s lurid baggage, and she has relevant experience he lacks. To her credit, she valiantly fought to eradicate South Florida’s addictive pill mills.
Otherwise, Bondi’s eight years as state attorney general (2011-2019) were a mishmash of mediocrity, right-wing politics and early and enthusiastic support for Trump’s first presidential campaign.
She took a dive on investigating credible complaints against Trump University, the consumer scam that eventually cost Trump $25 million in a lawsuit filed by New York’s attorney general. Bondi nixed a probe just after she solicited Trump for a $25,000 campaign contribution from a Trump family foundation.
She was indifferent to supporting Florida’s open government laws, which had been a priority for her predecessors such as Charlie Crist, Bob Butterworth, Bob Shevin and Jim Smith.
Attacks on Obamacare
As attorney general, Bondi led a multistate lawsuit against the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare, which provides health insurance to some 45 million Americans. As president, Trump tried to repeal it. Now he claims to have “concepts of a plan” to replace it with something better.
At the 2016 Republican convention, Bondi demeaned her office by leading “lock her up” chants against Hillary Clinton. After Trump was defeated in 2020, she parroted his false claims of a stolen election.
She was one of Trump’s defense lawyers at his first impeachment trial. As a member of mega-lobbyist Brian Ballard’s firm, she has also headed the legal division of the American Policy Institute, a pro-Trump think tank, where she has been drafting a raft of executive orders for Trump to sign on his first day that would roll back America a century or more.
With Gaetz, the president-elect signified that character was beside the point to finding someone to take down the Department of Justice and his perceived enemies in it.
The allegations against Gaetz of drug use and sex with minors should have been disqualifying.
No place for partisanship
So should Bondi’s rabid partisanship. The Justice Department is the worst possible place for it.
For the moment, though, no one could be happier than Republican senators who won’t have to vote openly on Gaetz, or House Republicans who have opposed releasing a secret report about his behavior.
The report should still be made public. Beyond shaming Gaetz, it might also disparage the Justice Department’s decision to not indict him after a three-year investigation that began during the first Trump presidency.
Gaetz resigned from the House the day Trump announced his selection. That was calculated to thwart the House Ethics Committee’s release of the report. Gaetz’s announcement Friday that he won’t return to Congress prolongs the Republicans’ pretext to withhold the report.
But by all means it should be released. Trump may have other roles in mind for Gaetz that do not require confirmation, and he had been widely thought to be planning a run for governor in 2026.
Even if the Gaetz report isn’t released, much of it almost surely will continue to be leaked. The more secretive the administration, the more vital are courageous Americans willing to leak information.
Why leaks still matter
Within hours, the New York Times and the Washington Post reported in detail how Gaetz paid two women for repeated sexual services. The Times included an elaborate illustrated flow chart that looked like the work product of Justice Department investigators.
Gaetz withdrew shortly after CNN asked him to comment on its report that his former 17-year-old sex partner told the House committee of a second encounter with him.
News leaks have a tainted reputation because of data dumps, at least one of which involved Russia, that revealed diplomatically damaging information or hinted at how the intelligence was gathered.
But overall, leaks have a vital and honorable place in history, most notably the FBI source in the Watergate scandal known as Deep Throat, and the Pentagon Papers that exposed how four presidential administrations misled the American people over the Vietnam war.
The Gaetz leaks were in that noble tradition — and they may yet become a gusher.
The Sun Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Opinion Editor Steve Bousquet, Deputy Opinion Editor Dan Sweeney, editorial writers Pat Beall and Martin Dyckman and Editor-in-Chief Julie Anderson. To contact us, email at letters@sun-sentinel.com.