More than half of Senate Republicans, including some in senior leadership positions, privately say they don’t see a path for former Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., to be confirmed as attorney general and would not support him to lead the Department of Justice, according to multiple people who spoke to NBC News on condition of anonymity.
While Gaetz’s ability to be confirmed appears on the rocks among Senate Republicans, President-elect Donald Trump’s team remains confident he will eventually be confirmed, even if it’s after an ugly battle.
NBC News spoke to more than 15 additional Republican sources who agreed that there are not enough votes in the Senate to confirm Gaetz, and some estimated that closer to 30 Republicans consider him unqualified.
Gaetz and Trump attorney Todd Blanche are moving full speed ahead on trying to fill out the Justice Department, according to sources familiar with the planning. If confirmed, Blanche would serve in the powerful No. 2 position at the Justice Department, overseeing all U.S. attorney’s offices throughout the country.
“President Trump and his team are focused on and confident in the confirmation of AG-designee Gaetz,” a person familiar with Trump’s thinking told NBC News.
Vice President-elect JD Vance and his aides have also been working the phones over the last two days to get a read on where senators stand on Gaetz.
Trump announced he was choosing Gaetz for the attorney general role on Wednesday, writing in a post on Truth Social, “Few issues in America are more important than ending the partisan Weaponization of our Justice System. Matt will end Weaponized Government, protect our Borders, dismantle Criminal Organizations, and restore Americans’ badly shattered Faith and Confidence in the Justice Department.”
When the president-elect initially publicized his pick, many Republicans — except for House Speaker Mike Johnson, who got a heads-up from Trump — were in complete shock.
In his few terms in the House, Gaetz has often been embroiled in controversy.
He was investigated by the Justice Department in a case involving the alleged sex trafficking of a 17-year-old girl, though the former congressman, who resigned his post shortly after he was picked for attorney general, has always denied the allegations and has never been criminally charged.
On Thursday, though, a lawyer for the 17-year-old girl wrote in a post on X, saying, “She was a high school student and there were witnesses” when the alleged incident occurred.
The attorney, John Clune, also called for the release of a House Ethics Committee report detailing the committee’s investigation into Gaetz, which has been ongoing for several years.
“If they want to send [the report] that’d be fine,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a staunch Trump ally, told reporters at the Capitol this week, though he added in a statement from his office that he planned to vote to confirm each of the president-elect’s judicial nominees.
On Friday, Johnson said he would “strongly request” that the report not be released publicly, though several Republican senators have said they would like to view the report as part of their deliberation process ahead of a confirmation vote.
“I don’t want there to be any limitation at all on what the Senate can consider,” Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, told reporters at the Capitol this week when asked whether the Senate Judiciary Committee should be privy to the report.
“We need to have a complete vetting of the nominees, not only so we know that the nominee is qualified, but also to protect the president,” he added.
“I think when you’re at this point, particularly given his abrupt departure from Congress just prior to that report coming out, considering the job that he is being appointed to, considering that the FBI is going to do a background check anyway, I can’t imagine that the committee is not going to want to see it,” said Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D. “So, at the very least, those of us that will have a vote at some point, starting with the Judiciary Committee, should see that. And I can’t imagine they won’t.”
The House Ethics Committee was expected to meet on Friday to decide whether to release its report on Gaetz, whom it has been investigating on and off since 2021, according to a source with direct knowledge. The panel abruptly canceled the meeting, which House Ethics Committee Chair Michael Guest, R-Miss., insisted was only postponed.
Later on Friday, an attorney for another woman interviewed by the House Ethics Committee said that his client “testified to the House Ethics Committee that she witnessed Rep. Gaetz having sex with a minor at a house party in Orlando in 2017.”
Several Republicans shared that Gaetz, who was investigated by the very agency he could now oversee, has a “steep hill” to climb toward confirmation in the Senate.
“I would guess if we had a vote today on the Senate floor, it might be more than that,” Cramer said Thursday when pressed whether 10 Senate Republicans could vote to oppose Gaetz — as Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal suggested to NBC News earlier that day. “I have concerns that he can’t get across the finish line, and we’re gonna spend a lot of political capital … on something that even if they got it done, you’d have to wonder if it was worth it.”
NBC News spoke to additional sources who put the unofficial tally closer to 30. Republicans who oppose Gaetz now could still ultimately vote to confirm him when the time comes, especially if pressure from Trump mounts.
If Republicans wind up with 53 seats in the upper chamber after the recount in Pennsylvania’s Senate race is concluded, Gaetz will not be confirmed if more than three GOP Senators vote against him (Vance could break a tie as the president of the Senate).
Republicans like Cramer have also cautioned Trump not to jam someone like Gaetz through in a recess appointment, which would bypass the Senate confirmation process.
Shortly after he was projected to win the presidential election, Trump wrote a post on Truth Social urging Republicans running to be the next Senate majority leader to allow him to use recess appointments to confirm a Cabinet quickly.
This style of nomination would bypass the normal appointment process, leaving the Senate entirely out of the equation, by allowing Trump to appoint members of his Cabinet while both chambers of Congress are in periods of recess that last days or weeks.
The House and Senate currently gavel in for pro forma sessions while in recess to prevent the president from taking such steps to appoint Cabinet members.
Since the Truth Social post, Trump has not asked for any specific Cabinet pick, including Gaetz, to be confirmed via recess appointment.
“If the obstructionists are the other party, and you have the votes to confirm somebody, then I think you could make an ethical decision to provide that opportunity, that constitutional opportunity,” Cramer said. “On the other hand, if the opposition is preventing you from doing it with your own party, I think it runs a couple of risks. You could do it, but you’d have a very weak Cabinet secretary.”
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