Congressman Matt Gaetz speaking at an “An Address to Young Americans” event, featuring President Donald Trump, hosted by Students for Trump and Turning Point Action at Dream City Church in Phoenix, Ariz., June 2020. (Photo by Gage Skidmore/ Wikimedia Commons)
President-elect Donald Trump’s nomination of Northwest Florida U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz to become attorney general is generating intense opposition, but it’s not just from Democrats in Washington.
Shortly after news broke Wednesday afternoon that Trump had nominated him, Gaetz stepped down from his seat representing Florida’s 1st Congressional District. His resignation came just days before before the House Ethics Committee was poised to vote on releasing a “highly damaging” report outlining its investigation of Gaetz, according to a report from Punchbowl News.
Mat Staver, founder and chairman of the Christian legal ministry Liberty Counsel in Orlando, fired off a blistering takedown the congressman on Thursday in a statement titled, “Matt Gaetz is not qualified to be U.S. Attorney General.”
“President-elect Donald Trump has quickly named many good choices to serve in his cabinet. But Matt Gaetz is not one of them,” Staver wrote.
“The nomination of Matt Gaetz as Attorney General is shocking and disappointing to those who have followed this man and the lurid scandals and serious allegations of sex parties and drugs during his tenure in the U.S. Congress. The resignation of Gaetz immediately after his name surfaced for Attorney General is inexplicable except for the fact this resignation now ends the U.S. House Ethics probe.
“Obviously, Gaetz does not want America to know the result of the Ethics investigation. Matt Gaetz has neither the experience nor the moral character to serve as the highest law enforcement officer of the United States of America. Gaetz should do President Trump and all of America a favor and withdraw his name from consideration. This will save him considerable embarrassment. America deserves better.”
Staver, an attorney who argued against placing the abortion-rights Amendment 4 on the ballot in front of the state Supreme Court last year, noted that Gaetz had fewer than three years of legal experience at a law firm in Fort Walton Beach before he began his political career in the Florida House of Representatives in 2010.
In a statement accompanying his written remarks, Staver references the multiple allegations of Gaetz indulging in sex and drugs (the House Ethics investigation involved allegations that he had sex with a minor).
Sex and drugs
“Numerous news articles have catalogued the serious allegations involving Gaetz, including using Venmo to pay women for sex, text messages, attending sex parties, and paying a minor for sex,” reads the statement.
“Witnesses have testified that they have seen Gaetz at these sex parties taking drugs. And his close association with former Seminole Country Tax Collector, Joel Greenburg, adds to these serious allegations. Greenburg is now serving time in prison for using his position for illegal gain and arranging sex parties for his friends, including Gaetz.”
Meanwhile, John Clune, the attorney for the young woman with whom Gaetz is alleged to have had sex with when she was a minor, is now calling on the House Ethics Committee to release its report.
“Mr. Gaetz’s likely nomination as Attorney General is a perverse development in a truly dark series of events,” Clune said on X. “We would support the House Ethics Committee immediately releasing their report. She was a high school student and there were witnesses.”
Republican U.S. Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, who sits on the Judiciary and Intelligence committees, has also called for release of the ethic report. “I don’t want there to be any limitation at all on what the Senate could consider,” he said.