Former Rep. Matt Gaetz has ended his bid to be Donald Trump’s attorney general, he announced on Thursday afternoon.
I had excellent meetings with Senators yesterday. I appreciate their thoughtful feedback - and the incredible support of so many. While the momentum was strong, it is clear that my confirmation was unfairly becoming a distraction to the critical work of the Trump/Vance…
— Matt Gaetz (@mattgaetz) November 21, 2024
From the moment Trump announced Gaetz as his pick last Wednesday, the nomination was met with a swift rebuke from Democrats — and some Republicans — over ongoing investigations into misconduct.
Gaetz has been under scrutiny since late 2020, when the Department of Justice started investigating claims that he had paid to have sex with a 17-year-old girl and trafficked her across state lines. The DOJ ultimately declined to prosecute, but the House Ethics Committee investigation into Gaetz remains ongoing.
“I greatly appreciate the recent efforts of Matt Gaetz in seeking approval to be Attorney General,” Trump said on Truth Social soon after Gaetz withdrew. He added that Gaetz was “doing very well” and “has a wonderful future.”
“I respect his decision,” incoming Senate Majority Leader John Thune said immediately after the announcement. The current Republican leader took a similar position. “I think that was an excellent move on the part of the incoming president,” Sen. Mitch McConnell told reporters later.
Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance both made direct appeals to senators this week on behalf of Gaetz and received overwhelmingly negative responses to the nomination. Vance and Gaetz visited senators together on Wednesday, and Vance huddled with his former colleagues on the Senate floor.
Ethics Committee members met Wednesday to vote on releasing the unfinished Gaetz report but remained deadlocked on whether to do so. House Speaker Mike Johnson publicly pushed against releasing any report, particularly after Gaetz resigned from office. The Ethics Committee ultimately decided to hold another vote on Dec. 5.
Gaetz resigned from the House shortly after Trump announced his nomination — and just days after he won reelection for the next Congress. It was not immediately clear what Gaetz’s future plans would be now.
From the start, most Republican senators were, at best, reluctant to talk publicly about the Gaetz nomination, while some openly rejected Gaetz’s credentials for the position. Aside from the ethics investigation, Gaetz had bothered some in his party as a longtime thorn in the side of Republican congressional leadership, never more so than in his bid to remove Kevin McCarthy as speaker.
Now with Gaetz officially taking himself out of consideration, some of the Republicans who remained mum are more openly rejecting Gaetz.
“I’d say it’s a positive development,” Sen. Roger Wicker said minutes after Gaetz withdrew.
Sen. Susan Collins, the most public skeptic of the nomination, said that by stepping aside, Gaetz “put the country first” and that she was “pleased with his decision.”
Sen. John Kennedy said the entire week had taken him by surprise.
“I was surprised when he was nominated, and I’m surprised now,” Kennedy said.
Sen. Mike Rounds had the opposite reaction.
“Dropping out was not unexpected,” he said.
“The Senate has a responsibility for advice and consent, and sometimes the advice is offered, sometimes it’s consent,” he added. “In this particular case, I would suspect that maybe there was advice being provided.”
The yearslong investigation around Gaetz centered on a drug-fueled sex party in 2017. According to court filings reported by NOTUS, a 17-year-old girl was naked at the party, partygoers were there to “engage in sexual activities” and “alcohol, cocaine, ecstasy … and marijuana” were present.
Gaetz has long denied the allegations, but they played a central part of the messaging around McCarthy’s ousting. After McCarthy resigned from the House, he said in April that the “truth” of why the motion to vacate was brought forward was “because one person, a member of Congress, wanted me to stop an ethics complaint because he slept with a 17-year-old.”
Sen. Markwayne Mullin, who has said Gaetz showed his colleagues photos of naked women while on the House floor, said he agreed with Gaetz’s decision to withdraw from consideration.
“Because of the reports that were coming out, it was probably a good decision on his point,” Mullin said.
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Katherine Swartz and Ben T.N. Mause are NOTUS reporters and Allbritton Journalism Institute fellows. Reese Gorman is a reporter at NOTUS. Helen Huiskes, Samuel Larreal and Violet Jira contributed reporting.