The knives are out in the race to confirm or crush Matt Gaetz’s attorney general bid—with Donald Trump personally twisting senators’ arms, a lawyer alleging Gaetz paid his clients for sex and a House Speaker trying to quash the mayhem.
The president-elect is reportedly pressuring senators in personal phone calls to support his controversial pick just as an undisclosed ethics report threatens to expose alleged illicit drug use, sex with minors and sex trafficking.
“He clearly wants Matt Gaetz,” Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), told Axios Monday after he received a call from Trump. “He believes Matt Gaetz is the one person who will have the fearlessness and ferociousness, really, to do what needs doing at the Department of Justice.”
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A damning undisclosed report by the House Ethics Committee, which House Speaker Mike Johnson has sought to censor, could include testimony from two women who told the panel that Gaetz paid them via Venmo for sex, a lawyer for the women, both adults, told ABC News.
The lawyer, Joel Leppard, also reportedly said that one of his clients saw Gaetz having sex with a 17-year-old at a house party in Florida.
“She testified [that] in July of 2017, at this house party, she was walking out to the pool area, and she looked to her right, and she saw Rep. Gaetz having sex with her friend, who was 17,” Leppard said, according to ABC.
Gaetz has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.
Trump’s pressure campaign to confirm his choice to lead the Department of Justice comes as the House Ethics Committee is expected to meet on Wednesday—potentially to decide whether to release the report over Johnson’s objections.
The committee’s chairman, Rep. Michael Guest, said Monday his panel will not be influenced by the speaker, who spent the weekend at Mar-a-Lago, then flew on Trump’s plane, along with Elon Musk, to attend a UFC event at Madison Square Garden.
Several Senate Republicans have demanded access to the full House ethics report so they can see the evidence against Gaetz and fully vet his nomination. They include Sens. John Cornyn of Texas, Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska.
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), who will relinquish his chairmanship of the Senate Judiciary Committee when Republicans take control of the chamber in January, said in a floor speech Monday that Gaetz is the “least qualified person and most radical person ever nominated to be Attorney General.”
“And his Congressional career has been mostly distinguished by his extreme statements. For example, former Congressman Gaetz has regularly called for eliminating the Justice Department that he will now be nominated to lead,” Durbin said. “He also wants to abolish the Justice Department’s components, most prominently the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, ‘if they do not come to heel.’”
