Senate Republicans are warning confirmation proceedings for former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) will be like “Kavanaugh on steroids,” referring to the contentious hearings for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh in 2018.
GOP senators say allegations against Gaetz of sexual misconduct and illicit drug use, as well as the findings of the Department of Justice’s probe into allegations of the sex trafficking of minors, are likely to become splashed across the media if he remains President-elect Trump’s nominee for attorney general.
Some Republicans are privately suggesting that Gaetz should consider withdrawing his nomination to save himself the wrenching ordeal of an embarrassing confirmation hearing if he’s unlikely to be confirmed in the end.
“The most humane way not only to Mr. Gaetz but to the dignity of our process, the best thing to do is to convince the president that the votes aren’t there, regardless of his strong-arming, and Gaetz can decide it’s not his to fight for,” said one Republican senator who requested anonymity to comment on the bleak prospects for Gaetz’s nomination.
But the lawmaker acknowledged that Trump may want to use Gaetz to make it easier to get some of his other controversial picks, such as Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is nominated to head the Department of Health and Human Services, and former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (Hawaii), who is nominated to serve as director of national intelligence, to get through the confirmation process.
“Maybe throwing Gaetz out there to the wolves and having this big frenzy and he goes down then allows for a situation where some of the others who are compromised” get through the Senate, the senator said.
The senator said a number of Senate Republican colleagues have already raised concerns about Kennedy and Gabbard.
Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), a senior member of the Judiciary Committee, warned that the details in the FBI’s investigation of Gaetz as well as the information in the House Ethics Committee’s report is likely to become public.
“It’s going to come to us one way or the other. There are no secrets around here,” Cornyn told reporters.
And he warned that a Senate confirmation hearing would be nasty and messy, even worse than the brutal fight over Kavanaugh, who was accused of committing sexual assault as a teenager.
Asked if Gaetz is aware that a confirmation hearing would become very messy, Cornyn said it would be “like Kavanaugh on steroids.”
“He’s a smart guy, I’m sure he realizes that,” Cornyn said.
Gaetz met with Cornyn and other Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee in the Capitol’s Strom Thurmond Room just off the rotunda on Wednesday.
Vice President-elect JD Vance, who is acting as the chief liaison between the Trump-Vance transition team and Republican senators, attended the meetings.
Vance has urged his colleagues to give Gaetz a chance to explain his vision for reforming the Justice Department and not rush to judgement about his fitness to serve.
Gaetz met with Cornyn and Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), Mike Lee (R-Utah), Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and John Kennedy (R-La.).
A second Republican senator who requested anonymity to discuss Gaetz’s embattled nomination said the remarks from Cornyn point to how Gaetz’s personal life could be examined over days of public hearings.
“I think he’s probably trying to send a message to Gaetz and the president that ‘this may be really ugly, do you really want to do this?’” the senator said.
“There are two months, at least, until the confirmation hearing. It’s a lot of time. It’s a lot of information that’ll be out there. The administration will need a plan for how to handle that,” the source warned.
A Senate Republican aide said Trump may decide that it’s not worth spending a lot of political capital on a losing battle over Gaetz.
“It doesn’t look like the votes are there. How much time and energy do you want to spend on this?” the aide said.
Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), another member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, agreed that the Gaetz nomination would only pour fuel on partisan tensions if it comes before his committee next year.
“I absolutely think it’s a multiplier. Given the environment we’re in, yeah,” he said.
Graham, the senior Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said he would try to prevent Gaetz’s confirmation hearing from becoming a “circus.”
But he cautioned that Democrats could call women who said Gaetz paid them for sex as well as a woman who said she had sex with Gaetz when she was 17 to testify before the committee.
“He wasn’t prosecuted for having sex with an underage girl. That tells me something. But having said that, this is not a criminal trial. This is a court of public opinion. Is this the right person for this job?” Graham said.
He said that Gaetz will have an opportunity to tell senators on the Judiciary Committee why he’s the right person to lead the Justice Department and to defend himself against allegations of misconduct.
But he said that Democrats will get a chance to bring forward their own witnesses, as they did six years ago when Christine Blasey Ford testified in detail about how Kavanaugh had groped her and tried to take off her clothes at a party in Bethesda when she was 15 and he was 17.
“That’s to be expected to some extent. I thought what they did to Kavanaugh was ridiculous, but there is a place for people to come in and say why this person is not qualified. Blasey Ford did,” he said. “That’s going to be the process.
“I expect [Gaetz] to be challenged. I expect people to come in and say why they think he did bad things,” he added.
Kavanaugh was ultimately confirmed to the Supreme Court in a mostly party-line 50-48 vote.
But GOP aides say that Republican senators viewed Kavanaugh much more favorably than they now view Gaetz, whom they blame for pushing former Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) out of the Speakership and causing chaos in the House last year.
Asked if Trump needs to run a cost-benefit analysis to decide whether it’s worth the political cost of trying to push Gaetz through the Senate, Graham said: “I’ll let him decide that.”
Graham issued a statement after meeting with Gaetz urging his Republican colleagues not to take the allegations against him as verified fact.
“I fear the process surrounding the Gaetz nomination is turning into an angry mob, and unverified allegations are being treated as if they are true. I have seen this movie before,” he said, appearing to allude to the bitter fight over Kavanaugh years ago.
