Brian Taylor Cohen reacts to the Matt Gaetz nomination for Attorney General. (9 minutes):

Wednesday’s announcement of Congress member (now former congress member in order to avoid further investigations into allegations of sexual trafficking) Matt Gaetz will be Trump’s nominee for Attorney General set off a bit of a media storm and no doubt smaller friendly storms across the country. I called a couple of friends to commiserate on something that sounded pretty much unbelievable.

This is putting the fox in charge of the hen house personified. Who knows more about criminals than criminals. In this little scenario we get a double dose – Trump and Gaetz. We all know Trump has been pulling every dodge in the book and then some to keep his keister out of the hoosegow. One of his dodges was to run for president even as a convicted felon.

Well, that seems to work as the voting public – a little over half of America – seems to think breaking laws and injuring people and our country is no reason to not reward this guy. And Trump passes it forward. In this instance it is Matt Gaetz. He is only the first of what will be a shitstorm of negating the rule of law. Think about it: the rule of law in this country will be ended by the party who so vociferously backed the “rule of law.”

Now here is how the Gaetz nomination throws a little kink into the long off 2026 federal election. According to the current rules the president names his cabinet with the ‘advice and consent of the senate.’ That has come to mean that a president must get a majority vote in favor of a nominee.

This seems to be a rather strange loyalty test for Trump to use to test the loyalty of ‘his’ MAGA senators. To prove they are loyal to him and not the voters they must vote to install a scurrilous, totally unqualified nominee as AG. But then some group of senators will have to defend such votes to the home state voters.

As usual, provided the president hasn’t somehow usurped the constitution, there will be mid-term elections in 2026. As usual 1/3rd of the senate seats will be up for election. Voting for an accused criminal to lead the Justice Department may be a bridge too far for many voters. Especially when that crime involves trafficking underage girls.

So a senator like say Joni Ernst may have a hard time answering questions concerning a vote to make an accused criminal such as Matt Gaetz the top lawman in the country. Despite the lessons of this last election where a felon was selected to be president, we would hope that an accusation of sexual dalliances with underage girls would be a bridge too far for a senator to defend.

Which may be why Trump once more has a way worked out to avoid the rule of Law. Trump has asked the senate to allow him to install nominees into office during a senate recess. So let’s say that the senate decides to take a month’s recess for Valentine’s Day and Trump could install Gaetz as AG. Slick, no?

And gutless senators like Joni Ernst can sidestep those nosy questions by the ‘fake’ news about voting for such a scurrilous person. Slick, no?

This comment on some forgotten board summed up how unbelievable the Gaetz nomination is:

“In fairness to Trump, Matt Gaetz was his second choice to run the Department of Justice, because Jeffrey Epstein is dead.”