Matt Gaetz as attorney general sounds like a liberal’s worst nightmare. But the reality is a little different

President-elect Donald Trump’s choice of Floridian firebrand Matt Gaetz for Attorney General has sent shockwaves through the Department of Justice and the rest of Washington. The former congressman is now girding for what promises to be a rough-and-tumble confirmation battle.

Gaetz, 42, who had represented Florida’s first congressional district since January 2017, resigned from his safe House seat shortly after Trump announced that he’d be nominating him to be the nation’s top law enforcement officer.

The former House Freedom Caucus member’s snap decision to quit the position he’d held for seven years appeared to be engineered to deep-six the release of what has been reported to be a scathing report from the House Ethics Committee. That report concerns allegations that he used illicit drugs and engaged in sex with underage women during his early years in the House.

Such allegations had been swirling around Gaetz for years, mainly in the form of leaks regarding a long-running Department of Justice investigation which ended in February 2023 without any charges being filed against him. The ethics investigation, which had been put in abeyance while the DOJ investigation moved forward, picked up speed once again and had been set to conclude with the report’s release last week. Needless to say, the release didn’t happen. Gaetz has denied any wrongdoing.

Gaetz’s controversies, combined with his key role in throwing the lower chamber into chaos last October by defenestrating then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy using a rarely employed procedural maneuver, have made him a pariah among many in his party. But he has nonetheless remained popular with Trump. Indeed, the Floridian has always been one of the president-elect’s fiercest defenders.

Trump is dead-set on choosing Gaetz to lead the Department of Justice because of Gaetz’s steadfast loyalty and his stated desire to exact revenge on the nation’s law enforcement apparatus after years of what he describes as political persecution (or what most legal experts call legitimate federal investigations that resulted in unprecedented criminal indictments against him.) Most Democrats and even a few Republicans in the House and Senate have suggested that the drumbeat of scandal surrounding the former congressman turned Attorney General-designate could sink his chances. Other commentators have dismissed Gaetz — who has never tried a single case in court, despite having a law degree from the College of William and Mary in Virginia — as a dilettante who’d weaponize the Justice Department on Trump’s behalf.

But a closer look at Gaetz’s record in Congress offers a more nuanced picture.

While he was a constant and bombastic defender of Trump and a party-line Republican vote on the House floor, the House Freedom Caucus member has often sided with or teamed up alongside Democrats on issues he’d have purview over if confirmed as Merrick Garland’s successor.

One area where Gaetz could use his newfound position to bring about a sea change in federal law enforcement is on drug policy. The Attorney General supervises the Drug Enforcement Administration and exercises significant influence over which drugs are effectively outlawed by being placed on “Schedule I” — a legal definition of substances with no accepted medical use and a high potential for addiction.

Republicans have traditionally been drug warriors who prioritize enforcement above all. But if confirmed, Gaetz could use his office to continue the work begun under the Biden administration to decriminalize and reschedule marijuana.

In May, Garland announced a proposed regulation to reclassify marijuana under Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act following a scientific review by the Department of Health and Human Services. That would effectively end roughly a half-century of “war” on the substance by federal drug enforcement authorities.

Morgan Fox, the political director for the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, told The Independent in a phone interview that Gaetz “has been one of the most supportive cannabis or cannabis policy reform advocates in Congress” among Republicans.

“I think that his appointment to that position would not only ensure that the current scheduling, petition and review process continues to move forward at pace, but hopefully even faster, because generally, these things have taken years to roll through the motions,” Fox said.

Fox added that Gaetz could formally reinstate a Department of Justice policy first promulgated in 2013 — but rescinded in 2017 under then-attorney general Jeff Sessions — under which the department declined to prosecute violations of marijuana laws in states where the drug had been legalized except under very specific conditions.

Gaetz could also push the department to decline to prosecute violations of law with respect to psychedelics — drugs such as MDMA (ecstasy) and other hallucinogenic substances that are known to have potential as treatments for depression and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Veterans groups and disability experts have been asking for more access to these substances, which are currently only legally available overseas.

Jesse Gould, an Army Ranger veteran who founded the Healing Hearts Project to help veterans gain access to such treatments, told The Independent that Gaetz has been one of a number of Republican members of Congress who have been working across the aisle to push for the federal government to expand access to the drugs they say are a lifeline for suffering veterans and a potential solution to an epidemic of veteran suicides. He said the former Florida congressman could use his authority as AG to push for the DEA to reschedule MDMA in the same way it has been working to schedule marijuana.

“I appreciate him and others who have … stepped out in front and brought this into the public discourse, into the public conversation,” he said.

Gaetz has also made unlikely allies across Capitol Hill with his advocacy for stronger antitrust enforcement by the executive branch.

He’s been described as a “Khan-servitive” for his steadfast support of Biden administration Federal Trade Commission boss Lina Khan, even as the Democratic regulator has drawn ire from much of the business community for her aggressive approach to policing corporate mergers and going after monopolies. And he was one of a number of Republicans behind a failed legislative push to constrain Big Tech power early on in President Joe Biden’s term.

At the same time, Gaetz has also been a consistent critic of presidents from both parties when it comes to use of unlimited presidential war powers. He’s been a consistent sponsor of bills to rescind the authorizations for use of military force that have underpinned much of the Global War on Terror, and in early 2020 he was one of only three House Republicans who backed a resolution to limit Trump’s ability to use military force against Iran.

He also teamed up with Democrats in what has thus far been a failed effort to enact stronger limits on stock trading among members of Congress. Indeed, Gaetz was the first House Republican to announce that he would not accept campaign contributions from political action committees. He made the announcement in a speech to the 2020 Conservative Political Action Conference, during which he said “honest capitalism” was “under attack by special interests and political action committees in the swamp of Washington, DC.”

Representative Ro Khanna, a California Democrat who served alongside Gaetz on the House Judiciary Committee and often found himself on the same side of his now-former colleague on antitrust and war powers issues, told The Independent that the Senate should question Gaetz on “all of his views” in addition to investigating the allegations against him. He also said Gaetz shouldn’t fight the release of the Ethics Committee report on his conduct.

“I think he should explain his work on war powers and whether he would be a voice against going to war in Iran. He should explain whether he would recommend someone like Lina Khan to be appointed. He should explain what his views are on reforming pacts and lobbyist money. He should explain what his views are on political retribution and firing career appointees, and I think he should be open … to letting the ethics report come out,” he said. “Because if he’s always for transparency, why not let it out there and then make the case?”

Another Democrat with whom Gaetz worked on efforts to ban stock trading by members, New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, said it’s important to make sure the next attorney general “doesn’t have a conflict of interest in their role” and called for “any pertinent information that would either clear him of wrongdoing or substantiate” the allegations against Gaetz to come out.

Ocasio-Cortez, who spoke to The Independent outside the Capitol on Tuesday alongside her French bulldog, Deco, said there were “certainly” issues “in which there is overlap” between her and her former colleague. But she stressed that “very basic vetting” should take precedence over any examination of Gaetz’s political positions.

Her House Progressive Caucus colleague, Representative Pramila Jayapal of Washington State, said “the big challenge” in dealing with any cabinet nomination “is always about what somebody does when they’re actually in power.”

Asked about Gaetz’s history of siding with Democrats on key issues, she said she doesn’t know where he stands on “the question of independence of the Department of Justice”. But she stressed that she and Gaetz have “absolutely have worked together” on “an important and narrow set of issues” including war powers, antitrust and reform of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

“I hope, if he somehow ends up in this position, maybe he won’t change his position on those,” she said.