Elections have consequences. Will Matt Gaetz as Attorney General be one of them?

Roger Kimball predicts that the Senate will confirm Matt Gaetz for Attorney General. “Elections have consequences,” Roger says, and in his view, one of the consequences of this election is that Gaetz will become the Attorney General of the United States.

Roger accurately predicted the outcome of the 2024 presidential race. He appears to have his finger on the pulse of the electorate. Maybe, he also has his finger on the pulse of the U.S. Senate.

I doubt it. But then, I was skeptical of Roger’s election forecast.

Elections do have consequences, of course. However, new presidents, including ones elected by bigger margins than Trump’s, don’t always get their nominees confirmed. Bill Clinton could not get his first two AG nominees — Zoe Baird and Kimba Woods — confirmed. They lost out because of nanny problems. Clinton’s nominee for Assistant AG in charge of the Civil Rights Division — Lani Guinier — could not be confirmed because her views on civil rights were too radical.

Gaetz’s problems are different. They include lack of experience as a lawyer and difficulty getting along with his fellow Republican legislators, including fellow conservatives. He may (or may not) have a serious ethics problems.

Roger’s case on the merits for confirming Gaetz appears to rest at least in part on the view that Democrats deserve him:

As Mollie Hemingway put it. . .“We don’t have a department of justice, we have a department of injustice, and that’s why you get Matt Gaetz as a nominee.”

The excesses of the Biden-Garland DOJ may explain why we got Gaetz. As discussed below, they don’t justify his selection.

I think the explanation for Matt Gaetz’s nomination is simpler. We we got Gaetz as a nominee because he’s Trump’s kind of a guy.

Other things being equal, that’s sufficient reason to confirm him, unless the nominee is the president’s kind of guy because of his willingness to abuse the office on the president’s behalf. Elections have consequences.

But in this case, I don’t think other things — qualifications and character, to name two — are even close to equal. It might also be the case that that Gaetz is Trump’s kind of guy for nefarious reasons.

If the case for Gaetz rests on his willingness to radically reverse course at the DOJ, it’s fair to ask whether there were other potential nominees who are willing and able to do that. I think there are. Ken Paxton, Mark Paoletta, and Ted Cruz come to mind.

Roger notes that “when Democrats win elections, they wield power; when Republicans win elections, they seek, or at least agree to, compromise.” That’s sometimes true. But Paxton, Paolettta, and Cruz are no one’s idea of compromise candidates for AG.

If the case for Gaetz rests on the fact that, in Roger’s words, “Trump wants someone he can trust,” I think we must ask: Trust to do what? There were other potential nominees, including those I named above, whom Trump can trust to run a Department free from corruption and pro-left bias, to stand up for conservative principles, and to remove officials who stand in the way of these objectives.

If, on the other hand, Trump wants the DOJ to be an instrument of vengeance against his political enemies without regard to whether they have committed crimes, then Gaetz might well be uniquely qualified. But to me, that would be an argument against confirming him.

Elections have consequences. But in America punishing people for being political enemies isn’t usually one of them. Nor should it ever be.