Congressman Matt Gaetz
He was nominated by Donald Trump for US attorney general, but retired after a week. He is accused of sexual misconduct and drug use. Who is Matt Gaetz, the “firebrand” with the fastest rise and fall?
Matt Gaetz, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, Susie Wiles and legal advisor Boris Epshteyn boarded a plane. The flight, leaving Washington, lasted two hours and was destined for Florida.
It was there, with turmoil in between, that they decided to appoint Gaetz, a 42-year-old former Republican congressman from Florida, as US Attorney General. It was known that the former lawyer had been the subject of a three-year federal investigation into sex traffickingwhich ended in 2023 because the Justice Department refused to bring charges.
He was also the subject of a House Ethics Committee inquiry into allegations of sexual misconduct, illicit drug use and misuse of campaign funds, among other matters, says .
Gaetz denies all the accusations against him, but that hasn’t stopped him from present, this Wednesday, his resignationjust a week after being appointed. It was replaced by .
According to the BBC, a Trump adviser explained Gaetz’s choice: “Everyone else looked at the attorney general as if they were running for a judicial appointment.” This was not the case for Gaetz, who was excited about the idea of going “over there and start cutting off heads“, as promised.
But it was already anticipated that Gaetz’s problems with the law could cause problems. According to , Republican Party senators had already stated this week, before the withdrawal, that the allegations against Gaetz were likely to be spread through the media.
Not only were they, but they seem to have dissuaded the Republican from taking office. The new Senate majority leader, John Thunea Republican from South Dakota, said the lawsuit the alleged Attorney General would face would be like “Kavanaugh on steroids”, referring to the Supreme Court nominee’s controversial hearings in 2018.
Despite the withdrawal, Trump continues to predict a “wonderful future” to the nominee. Gaetz’s wife, Ginger, posted a photo of the two leaving the Capitol. A week after her husband took over, she already anticipated great things: “the end of an era”he wrote in the caption. An era that lasted 8 days.
