Matt Gaetz is out of the running for attorney general — but Donald Trump has plenty of other allies willing to fight his battles at the Justice Department.
Trump’s next pick for the role might not be facing sex trafficking accusations like Gaetz was, a detail that made it impossible for him to win enough support among Republican senators to be confirmed. GOP lawmakers, however, expect the new nominee to be just as aggressive as Gaetz, who is a frequent critic of the “deep state” and one of Trump’s most loyal supporters.
“The president will pick somebody equally as tenacious and equally as committed to cleaning up the DOJ and rooting out politicization,” Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul told reporters on Thursday.
And Sen. Mike Braun said Trump is “clearly picking people that are going to work with him and that are going to disrupt the system.”
Even though Senate Republicans quietly torpedoed Gaetz’s nomination this week, they still broadly praised Trump’s ability to choose the Best People to work with him. In interviews with NOTUS, members expressed confidence that they’ll support whoever comes next, and they said that person would be just the right candidate to lead the DOJ.
“President Trump has the ability to pick some really good people, and he’s done that for his whole career — his business career, to when he was in office last time, his campaign,” Sen. Markwayne Mullin said. “I know he has great candidates they already interviewed.”
Some even pointed to their own colleague, Sen. Mike Lee of Utah, as an alternative.
“Mike Lee would be a great choice,” Sen. Mike Rounds of South Dakota told reporters. “He’s one of these guys that has great respect in the United States Senate.”
Lee, an attorney who once clerked for Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, is also a vocal Trump ally. He first opposed him, leading an effort during the 2016 GOP convention to try to deny him the nomination because he worried Trump would try to be “an authoritarian.” After Trump took office, Lee delivered a speech at The Heritage Foundation that tried to strike a balance between his own brand of conservatism and Trump’s views. Ever since, he’s been on Trump’s side. He’s also embraced an adversarial, right-wing style of online communication, tweeting from a “Based Mike Lee” account with a profile picture featuring lasers coming out of his eyes.
But Rounds thinks, either way, that Trump won’t suffer from any lack of options.
“There are a number of individuals who can accomplish what the president wants to do in terms of making sweeping changes with the Department of Justice,” he said. “He needs to have somebody that he can have confidence in, and he also needs someone that the Senate recognizes, knows and would also have confidence in.”
Sen. John Cornyn of Texas had another colleague in mind: “Somebody suggested that Ted Cruz should be the next attorney general,” he said. “Interesting idea.”
Cruz, meanwhile, told NOTUS he’s happy in the Senate. “I am staying right where I am,” he said. “Not going anywhere.”
Most senators were ready to forget about this brief moment in time and move on to the next choice for attorney general. But a couple said they hope Trump’s team will have learned from the ordeal.
“There’s been so much focus on his controversies,” Sen. Thom Tillis said of Gaetz. “I’d like to go back and understand the factors that led to his decision.”
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Haley Byrd Wilt is a reporter at NOTUS. Tinashe Chingarande, Ben T.N. Mause, Helen Huiskes, and Katherine Swartz are NOTUS reporters and Allbritton Journalism Institute fellows.