Like the Media Research Center, WorldNetDaily didn’t do all that much in support of Matt Gaetz as a candidate for attorney general. What favorable accounts there were happened on the “opinion” side. Bucky Fox cheered in a Nov. 14 column:
Matt Gaetz, 44, the attorney general we’ve been waiting for. Certainly, Mr. Trump has, after the hell of being indicted more than Al Capone, as he bellowed at rallies. Now with glee he said, “Matt will end weaponized government, protect our borders, dismantle criminal organizations and restore Americans’ badly shattered faith and confidence in the Justice Department.” Mr. Gaetz is a true Sunshine Stater, graduating from Florida State and representing the western Panhandle in Congress. He takes the tough road, leading the ouster of Speaker Kevin McCarthy for failing as a conservative. Now the traitors, from the Russia-Russia-Russia confederates on up, better look out. This firebrand will run them through the Gaetz of hell.
As a friend just messaged me, “Gaetz will be our Gen. Sherman. March to the sea, baby.”
Josh Hammer did admit in his Nov. 15 column that “if you had consummate ‘Florida man’ Matt Gaetz on your bingo card as Trump’s pick for U.S. attorney general, then you’re quite a bit more prescient than I.” He then hyped how “That is a lot of high-ranking young – or at least comparatively young – people” in Trump’s Cabinet picks,” claiming that “has a greater goal in mind: He is trying to foster an intergenerational legacy and solidify MAGA as America’s dominant early-to-mid-21st-century political movement.”
That was pretty much it, though. Even Bob Unruh was admitting in a Nov. 14 “news” article that Gaetz’s nomination seemed doomed:
Democrats have been left reeling by a long list of names that President-elect Donald Trump has announced he will nominate for key posts: Elon Musk to address government efficiency, Pete Hegseth for Defense, Tulsi Gabbard as director of National Intelligence, John Ratcliffe for CIA, Mike Huckabee for Ambassador to Israel, Marco Rubio as secretary of State, Tom Homan as Border Czar, Lee Zeldin at the EPA, Elise Stefanik to the United Nations.
But there’s one nominee who has not only alarmed Democrats but raised eyebrows – and concerns – from Republicans and other conservatives.
Matt Gaetz, for attorney general.
[…]But groups like Liberty Counsel, which has been on the cutting edge of a long list of legal fights for conservatives and Christians, openly doubted the pick.
It issued a statement describing Gaetz as “neither morally nor professionally qualified” for the position.
It pointed out he has three years or less experience in the practice of law, “hardly enough to serve as the nation’s chief law enforcement officer.” Then is cited suspicions that have clouded Gaetz for months already as the House Ethics committee reviewed claims against him concerning sex and drug activities.
In fact, he resigned from Congress as soon as his nomination was announced, “ending the Ethics probe into his sex parties that includes allegations of paying an underage girl for sex.”
And his “close association with former Seminole Country Tax Collector, Joel Greenburg, adds to these serious allegations,” the statement said. “Greenburg is now serving time in prison for using his position for illegal gain and arranging sex parties for his friends, including Gaetz.”
Elizabeth Farah used her Nov. 19 podcast to fluff Gaetz with help from right-wing writer Darren Beattie.
Unruh returned on Nov. 20 to cheer the reading of a legal note by “The View” co-host Sunny Hostin: “A far-left talk show entertainer grimaced and frowned, but on the air she read a “legal note” explaining the truth about claims historically made against former U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., who has been nominated by President-elect Donald Trump to be the nation’s attorney general.” Unruh did not back up his claim that Hostin is “far-left.”
The next day, however, WND had to report the BREAKING” news that Gaetz was withdrawing from the process. Still, the anonymous writer did what he or she could to portray him as a victim:
Gaetz repeatedly has called out the weaponization of the Department of Justice, FBI and others federal arms of government, for their lawfare and other attacks on President Trump.
He also had been targeted by the government bureaucracies, when allegations of his involvement in an affair with an underage girl appeared. The DOJ eventually closed that case without charges, but that did not stop leftists, Democrats, and those in the media from reusing them to assault Gaetz.
Only a day earlier the House Ethics Committee deadlocked, and therefore could not release its own report into those allegations made against Gaetz.
The committee technically has no jurisdiction over Gaetz, either, as he resigned from the House when he was nominated by Trump.
Several Republican senators had joined the Democrat opposition to Trump’s appointees, expressing doubt whether Gaetz could pass a vote.
However, he already was re-elected to the term that starts in January, and he will return to the House as a lawmaker.
But Gaetz declared the next day he would not return to Congress despite winning the seat. WND didn’t bother to update the story.
Hammer used his Nov. 21 column to praise the purported genius strategy behind this flameout:
Many of my fellow conservative lawyers panned the Gaetz pick on the grounds of his lacking the relevant “credentials” or not being “qualified” for the post of the nation’s top law enforcement official. I was not necessarily one of them, although Gaetz was not anywhere my own list of best attorney general picks. Given the sexual misconduct ethics controversy surrounding Gaetz and the fact that he is known to have many enemies on both sides of the aisle, Gaetz’s confirmation fight was always going to be an uphill slog. The political capital the transition team and incoming administration would have needed to expend to get Gaetz across the finish line in the Senate was an obvious distraction from the substantive “America First” agenda, which must hit the ground running come January.
In fact, Gaetz may have played his hand perfectly. By immediately resigning from Congress after being tapped for attorney general, Gaetz has effectively stopped the House Ethics Committee from releasing its much-anticipated report on his alleged sexual misconduct and drug use. If he runs for governor of Florida in 2026, as he is widely believed to be considering, he can credibly say he was Trump’s first pick to be attorney general of the United States. And he gets a good excuse to resign from being a U.S. congressman, a job he apparently disliked. If the consummate “Florida man” wants to come home to Florida, where his father is a former president of the state Senate and is once again a reelected state senator, Gaetz the younger now has a good reason to do so.
Hammer then proclaimed this as “an actual instance of Trumpian ‘4-D chess'”:
From Trump’s perspective, he has thus killed two birds with one stone. First, he has demonstrated reciprocal loyalty to an arch-MAGA loyalist, Gaetz, and permitted him the ability to play his difficult political hand as well as he could possibly have played it. Second, Bondi’s confirmation fight now looks like a genuine breeze. The Gaetz announcement caught so many off-guard, ruffled so many feathers and was vociferously opposed by so many that anyone – literally anyone – who Trump picked next, after the Gaetz nomination inevitably failed, would have looked calm, cool and sober by comparison.
Yep, Hammer rally made that argument.