John Bolton contested President-elect Donald Trump’s decision to choose the highly controversial Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) as attorney general for his administration.
“Well, it must be the worst nomination for a Cabinet position in American history,” the former national security adviser to Trump told NBC’s Kristen Welker on “Meet the Press Now” Wednesday.
“Gaetz is not only totally incompetent for this job, he doesn’t have the character,” Bolton added. “He is a person of moral turpitude, and notwithstanding how difficult it may be politically, this is a nomination the Republican Party should oppose.”
Bolton said that he’s not confident that the party will argue the pick since people may be “intimidated by Trump.”
“I think it may never come to a vote on the floor if the new leadership in the Senate goes to the president and says, ‘You cannot endanger Republican senators by forcing them to vote in favor of this nomination. And if you don’t want to have a real internal party battle, this nomination needs to be withdrawn,’” he said.
Notably, the Justice Department that Gaetz may lead in the near future previously launched a sex trafficking investigation into him in 2020 before dropping the case years later. Gaetz was accused of being in a relationship with a 17-year-old girl and traveling with her to various states.
Gaetz’s peers in the House moved earlier this year to begin investigating him.
The House Ethics Committee accused him of having “engaged in sexual misconduct and illicit drug use, accepted improper gifts, dispensed special privileges and favors to individuals with whom he had a personal relationship, and sought to obstruct government investigations of his conduct.”
However, the committee’s probe will come to a close now that Gaetz has resigned from Congress after being nominated for attorney general.
On Truth Social, Trump’s social media platform, he called Gaetz a “deeply gifted and tenacious attorney.”
Democracy In The Balance
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“Matt will end Weaponized Government, protect our Borders, dismantle Criminal Organizations and restore Americans’ badly-shattered Faith and Confidence in the Justice Department,” Trump added. “He is a Champion for the Constitution and the Rule of Law.”
Gaetz called the decision “an honor” on X, formerly called Twitter.
Gaetz is just one of Trump’s many recent selections for his upcoming administration, which he’s been rolling out the past couple of days.
Prior to his appearance on NBC, Bolton discussed Trump’s Cabinet picks on CNN Tuesday and warned that the president-elect is looking purely for “fealty, really a feudal sense of subservience” in his choices.
