Open the White House Watch newsletter for free.
Your guide to what the 2024 US election means for Washington and the world
Donald Trump has dispatched JD Vance to Washington to bolster support for the president’s pick for attorney general, Matt Gaetz, who is facing allegations of sexual misconduct and drug abuse.
According to a person familiar with the mission, the vice president-elect will serve as a sort of “Sherpa” for Vance Gaetz and Pete Hegseth, the Fox News host Trump has nominated for secretary of defense.
Elon Musk, Trump’s billionaire confidante, also rushed to defend Gaetz, posting on X that the former Florida congressman needed three “critical assets” to run the Justice Department — “a big A brain, a spine of steel and an ax to grind.”
“He’s the Judge Dread America needs to clean up a corrupt system and put powerful bad actors in jail,” Musk added, referring to the fictional comic book character who pursues criminals in a dystopian world. “Gaetz will be our hammer of justice.”
The persuasive effort by Trump’s transition team comes as the House Ethics Committee prepares to vote on whether to release the results of an investigation into drug and sex allegations against Gatz.
US media also reported on Tuesday that a hacker had downloaded documents from another civil suit against a Florida congressman.
Trump sent shock waves through Washington last week when he selected Gatz, a 42-year-old conservative firebrand with little legal experience, as his nominee for attorney general.
Getz was under investigation by the US Department of Justice for allegedly having sex with an underage girl. While no charges were brought, he has been the subject of a separate, long-running House investigation. Gaetz has denied allegations of wrongdoing.
The House investigation took a nosedive last week when Gaetz resigned from Congress after Trump’s nomination for attorney general. House Speaker Mike Johnson, a close Trump ally, has called on the Ethics Committee to keep its report confidential.
However, the committee will make its own decision on how to proceed, said Michael Guest, the Mississippi Republican who chairs the committee. The committee’s top Democrat, Congresswoman Susan Wild of Pennsylvania, said the report “absolutely should be released to the public.”
Even if the report is officially kept under wraps, many in Washington expect it to be leaked by a member of Congress or staff, or through other channels.
On Monday, lawyers for two women who testified before the committee that Gaetz paid them for sex told several U.S. news outlets that one of the women had sexually assaulted him at a party in 2017. Umar was seen having sex with the girl. The lawyer, Joel Leppard, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Both Gaetz and Hegseth – who have also been investigated for sexual assault and deny any wrongdoing – would need a majority of US senators to confirm their appointments.
But the swirling allegations leave Gaetz, in particular, facing an uphill battle in the chamber, even though Republicans would hold a 53-47 majority and could be confirmed with 50 senators and Vance’s support. . Several Republican senators have publicly and privately expressed concerns about his nomination for the top DoJ job.
At the top of Vance’s mission to Washington, Trump has begun calling Republican senators to urge them to support Gaetz.
Senator Kevin Cramer of North Dakota told Axios that he recently spoke with Trump on the phone and called the president-elect a “pretty persuasive guy” who is putting “his political capital” behind the nomination.
“He obviously wants Matt Gaetz,” Cramer said. “He believes that Matt Gaetz is someone who will have the fearlessness and the ruthlessness, really, to do what needs to be done at the Justice Department.”
Additional reporting by Stefania Palma in Washington
