Paul Mirengoff on Trump's Nominees (Including Matt Gaetz)

I've been reading and much enjoying Paul Mirengoff & Bill Otis's Ringside at the Reckoning. I don't always agree with them, and I think that politically they tend to be more conservative than I am. But I've generally found them to be blunt, level-headed, and thoughtful, and they generally strike me as astute observers of American politics. (Paul Mirengoff was a cofounder of the conservative Power Line blog, which has been following American politics for 20 years.)

I thought I'd pass along Mirengoff's most recent post, Trump's picks: The good, the questionable, and the crazy. As you can tell from the title, he praises some (Marco Rubio for Secretary of State, John Ratcliffe for CIA Director), expresses doubt about others (including criticizing Kristi Noem for Homeland Security as not being conservative enough), and sharply criticizes others, including Matt Gaetz for Attorney General. Since the AG position is of especial interest to me as a lawyer and someone who writes mostly about law, I thought I'd pass along Mirengoff's thoughts:

I agree with the Wall Street Journal's editorial board:

This is a bad choice that would undermine confidence in the law. Mr. Trump lauded Mr. Gaetz's law degree from William and Mary, but it might as well be a doctorate in outrage theater. He's a performer and provocateur, and his view is that the more explosions he can cause, the more attention he can get. "It's impossible to get canceled if you're on every channel," he once said. "If you aren't making news, you aren't governing."

Mr. Gaetz has no interest in governing. When Republicans took control of the House in 2022, it was with a small margin. Rather than work to get things done, Mr. Gaetz sabotaged Speaker Kevin McCarthy before finally leading a rebellion to oust him. Eight Republican malcontents plunged the GOP into weeks of embarrassing paralysis, since Mr. Gaetz had no alternative that could command a majority….

Trump selected Gaetz for one reason: his belief that Gaetz, out of blind loyalty, will use the Justice Department to take on the president's enemies. No AG, whether appointed by a Democrat or a Republican, should ever assume that role.

Trump says that Gaetz will "root out systemic corruption at the DOJ." There is no systemic corruption at the Department, but there is systemic bias that needs to be dealt with.

However, there are many qualified conservatives who could have taken on the bias, and done it with far more credibility than Gaetz, who is under investigation for sexual misconduct and illicit drug use, accepting improper gifts, dispensing special privileges and favors to individuals with whom he had a personal relationship, and seeking to obstruct government investigations.

Gaetz's nomination isn't just crazy; it's disgraceful. The Senate almost certainly will not confirm him.

Trump might then try to install Gaetz via a recess appointment. This anti-constitutional scheme threatens great mischief, including but not limited to its future use by Democratic presidents.

I have no informed opinion on the Gaetz nomination myself; my first reaction was quite negative, and people I trust have sharply criticized it as well, but I don't want to claim any expertise on the subject. Still, Mirengoff's analysis struck me as quite sensible, and I thought I'd quote it. I'd be glad to hear of thoughtful analyses on the other side (or others on the same side that aren't duplicative of this one).

Comments

[John F. Carr]

That was my reaction too. There must be better hard right Trump loyalists for the job, if we're going to have a hard right Trump loyalist and I think we are. At least Trump got Gaetz out of the House. That makes his election not completely a waste. There must be better conservative Republicans in Florida's 1st Congressional District.

[Bob from Ohio]

"Gaetz out of the House"

Did you? New term starts in January.

[John F. Carr]

When resigning he stated he would not return for the next term. I don't know if that statement is binding.

[Noscitur a sociis]

If he takes that seat in January, I think that will kind of give the game away…

[Dan Schiavetta]

He gave Gaetz a reason to resign from the House (even though he didn’t have to until January) just before the sex trafficking report came out. Now it’s sealed forever. Gaetz is now in great debt to Trump.

[David Nieporent]

It's not "sealed forever," practically or legally.

As I posted in another one of these comment threads, there is zero chance that an ethics report on an AG nominee (let alone AG) will not be leaked by someone. Moreover, senators have already said that they want to see the report as part of the confirmation process.

And if he chose to return to Congrss in January, why wouldn't the investigation be reopened?

[Dan Schiavetta]

I hope you’re right.

[SRG2]

Not only is there no chance it won't be leaked, leaking would be the right thing to do.

[Dan Schiavetta]

Only if a Democrat can do it.

[Mr. Bumble]

Eugene. If I remember correctly when Paul Mirengoff was at Powerline he had such an extreme case of TDS that one of the other bloggers threatened to punch him out (can't remember of it was Scott Johnson or Steve Hayward).

[Noscitur a sociis]

While Gaetz is certainly a bad pick, I do think it must have been tough for Trump to do a whole lot better.

Anyone smart enough to be a good attorney General has to realize that they’re either going to be called upon to do something pretty unpopular and unseemly, or else have Trump get mad, fire them, and tell all his supporters that they’re RINO cuck traitors. And probably both.

So who’s going to agree to take that on? A politician (Cruz, Cotton, Hawley, for instance)? Why take the risk?

A judge? Unlike Merrick Garland or Michael Mukasey, the Trumpy ones are young and haven’t even earned their retirement yet. Why give up a life time appointment only to find yourself needing to beg for a real job in two or three years from a legal community that hates you?

A conservative lawyer in private practice? You’re talking about a pay cut of an order of magnitude or two. And unlike prior AG’s, you can’t necessarily be guaranteed to walk back into a white shoe partnership when it’s all over.

So most of the people who are willing to take the job are going to be people with nothing left to lose, or who are dumb enough to think they can beat the odds and make the appointment a personal success. That’s not to say that he couldn’t find a better choice than Gaetz (who appears to fit both boxes). But getting a really good person for the job was never going to be easy.

[David Nieporent]

Rudy is tanned, rested, and ready.

Or someone like Jeffrey Clark — who was ready to help the 2020 coup attempt — Ken Paxton, Kris Kobach, or Mike Davis.

And those are only the ones who are vaguely plausible, not even counting some of Trump's personal lawyers, who are manifestly unfit but no more so than Gaetz.

[Noscitur a sociis]

Rudy is tanned, rested, and ready.

The attorney general is supposed to be able to practice law.

Jeffrey Clark — who was ready to help the 2020 coup attempt — Ken Paxton, Kris Kobach, or Mike Davis.

Yes, this is probably the most likely well to draw from. But even here, it wouldn’t surprise me if, e.g., Clark has seen over the last four years how far his brief relationship with Trump tanked his life to have any interest in coming back (and would Trump even want him after he failed him so badly?), and Paxton has a lot of the same disincentives as the other politicians.

And those are only the ones who are vaguely plausible, not even counting some of Trump’s personal lawyers

Have I got some news for you!

[Brett Bellmore]

Anyone smart enough to be a good attorney General has to realize that if they work for Trump in any capacity they'll face an organized effort to ruin them. He's not allowed to have lawyers work for him.

[SRG2]

Easy enough to imagine your coming to Ken Paxton's defence if it's him.

[Archibald Tuttle]

“Trump says that Gaetz will “root out systemic corruption at the DOJ.” There is no systemic corruption at the Department, but there is systemic bias that needs to be dealt with.”

You’re nitpicking. Systematic bias likely leads to systematic corruption.

[Roger S]

Yes, so Gaetz was picked to deal with the systemic bias. He was not picked to prosecute political enemies. This whole column is a straw man attack.

[Sarcastr0]

1. The modern conservative yells bias at everything; I take issue with the premise.

But more importantly, how does systemic bias leads to corruption? One is a factual failure and the other is conscious illegal wrongdoing.
Is this another 'there is no such thing as professionalism' push?

[Brett Bellmore]

There IS such a thing as professionalism. That doesn't mean that people in a particular organization actually exhibit it.

You want evidence of systematic corruption at the FBI? Fine.

When they interview people they write down notes afterwards from memory, instead of recording the interview. Literally the only advantage this has over recording interviews is that it allows you to lie about what was said during the interview.

That by itself is enough to establish systematic corruption.

[Sarcastr0]

Brett, that's an off topic anecdote.

Here's the thesis: "Systematic bias likely leads to systematic corruption."

You've written nothing relevant to supporting it.

[Brett Bellmore]

You are simply constitutionally incapable of accepting the existence of evidence for things you want to deny. So if somebody presents evidence, you dismiss it as an off topic anecdote, (How can the FBI's long standing SOP be an "anecdote", let alone off topic?) or claim that thinking a particular institution is corrupt amounts to denial that it's possible to NOT be corrupt.

The fact is that the federal bureaucracy, outside of the State Department, is overwhelmingly staffed with Democrats, and this has serious consequences.

[Mr. Bumble]

In case you've forgotten:
Douche[SarcastrO]

someone who is more than a jerk, tends to think he's top notch, does stuff that is pretty brainless, thinks he is so much better than he really is, and is normally pretty good at ticking people off in an immature way.
"Wow he's such a Douche"
"That was a Douche move"
by solvingworldproblemsoneatatime October 21, 2013

[Lee Moore]

Trump selected Gaetz for one reason: his belief that Gaetz, out of blind loyalty, will use the Justice Department to take on the president's enemies. ......

......However, there are many qualified conservatives who could have taken on the bias, and done it with far more credibility than Gaetz, who is under investigation for sexual misconduct and illicit drug use, accepting improper gifts, dispensing special privileges and favors to individuals with whom he had a personal relationship, and seeking to obstruct government investigations.

I suspect that this is the point that Mirengoff is missing. Having been under investigation by the Feds, Gaetz is not very likely to go native and start trusting the Feds. The same motivation no doubt underlies Trump's nomination of Tulsi Gabbard. I suspect Trump of thinking "if they've personally been done over by the Feds, they probably aren't jus' pretendin' to be against the Deep State."

I have no idea if Gaetz has indeed done something dodgy, though I note in his favor the fact that the Justice Dept dropped its investigation. When Beria opens an investigation against one of his enemies ..... and declines to pursue them, that hints that smoking guns are in pretty short supply.

[Roger S]

Good analogy. The same reasoning would have said not to nominate Gabbard because the people below her accused her of being a Russian agent, and she lacks credibility because she cannot prove that she is not a Russian asset.

[David Nieporent]

Nobody "below her" accused her of that.

[Commenter_XY]

It comes down to: What is President Trump's goal wrt DOJ, FBI?

If Pres Trump is serious about dismantling the entrenched DC bureaucracy, then Rep Gaetz is probably a good choice for the job. Gaetz's job would be providing clarity and direction in implementing the Presidents agenda, and whacking bureaucrats left and right, not arguing cases in court.

[Noscitur a sociis]

Gaetz’s job would be providing clarity and direction in implementing the Presidents agenda, and whacking bureaucrats left and right

Let’s set aside any concerns about his own potential criminal activity.

What in his background makes you think he would be in any way good or effective in doing that?

[David Nieporent]

I suspect that this is the point that Mirengoff is missing. Having been under investigation by the Feds, Gaetz is not very likely to go native and start trusting the Feds.

Why? The Feds investigated Gaetz and decided not to prosecute him. Shouldn't that demonstrate to him that they're fair?

[Satchmo_Lives]

Hell, from what I am reading in the comments it sounds like he is just another Garland, but from the opposite side. I can’t think of a better man to imitate. Garland was chosen by the Great One himself to sit on SCOTUS and was described as a moderate in his jurisprudence (damn, Mitchy got that one right).

Seriously, as about as conservative as they come, I still hate this pick. HATE IT!! I really hoped he would pick someone to reform the DOJ. Unfortunately it looks as if he said Garland, I see your partisanship and raise you a Gaetz. NAS may be right in his observation; nobody worth a damn would take the job because they might want to defer to the rule of law risking Trump’s ire..

[Kleppe]

"He's a performer and provocateur, and his view is that the more explosions he can cause, the more attention he can get."

The basis for this criticism is mind-reading; "his view is..."

"Mr. Gaetz has no interest in governing."

This is still mind-reading.

"Trump selected Gaetz for one reason: his belief that Gaetz, out of blind loyalty, will use the Justice Department to take on the president's enemies."

Mind-reading.

Are any of you starting to notice a pattern here?

[Brett Bellmore]

"Rather than work to get things done, Mr. Gaetz sabotaged Speaker Kevin McCarthy"

Deciding WHAT things should get done is logically prior to 'getting things done.

[Lee Moore]

Not in DC

[Bill Harshaw]

As a longtime reader of Powerline--Mirengoff was to me the best of the lot. Because I'm liberal he didn't have a high batting average, but he did better than his partners, who IIRC ousted him for his post Jan 6 takes.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

I read Bill Otis at Sentencing Law & Policy.

Yes, he is blunt. He is conservative. His ability to be level-headed from my vantage point was mixed.

[Social Justice is neither]

It's funny how every leftist on the blog is trotting out this line. Sorry but your team sees people that disagree with you as terrorists and traitors just for disagreeing with your far left positions. Your mixed feelings are a severe black mark from any place close to sanity let alone dismantling the institutions you've infected.

[SRG2]

FWIW 20 years ago Bill Otis was an active contributor to the old CNN online forums, though he used his wife Lee's name as his handle. I had frequent exchanges with him and we chattted on the phone a couple of times.

IIRC he resigned from Federal service after the Feds decided that Miranda applied to Federal arrests, not just state.

[Raccroc]

So, let's break this down point for point...

"Rather than work to get things done, Mr. Gaetz sabotaged...:"
Part of the issue is that you see this as a negative. An theme that helped Trump get elected the first time was an anti-institution wave. The perception was that the institutional Republicans were fighting Trump's agenda and pushing a very business-as-usual agenda. So Gaetz did something that other anti-institution groups like the Tea Party had only dreamed of being able to do... he blew things up. I would argue that we need more, not less of this.

"He's a performer and provocateur, and his view is that the more explosions he can cause, the more attention he can get."
Thing is, this is a very useful trait for what Trump is wanting to do. 4 years is all he has to make a dent in a very large and very institutionalized agency and a typical AG might not even have a solution out of committee by that time his term is over. A bulldog who is willing to kamikaze himself in this pursuit is how you shake things up and get change quickly. Will he break shit along the way? Absolutely. Will it destroy any political career Gaetz might still have? Most likely (although, if he wants a job at Fox, I'd posit it is a great career move). Will the end result be worth it? Who the hell knows.

"Trump selected Gaetz for one reason: his belief that Gaetz, out of blind loyalty, will use the Justice Department to take on the president's enemies."
Did I miss a press release? This sounds a huge assumption where one is projecting ones feelings of the man. Trump has a problem. If the DOJ, FBI, and other federal agencies have a strong blue bias, then anything that Trump does to root that out and rectify that is going to been seen by those against Trump as "take on the president's enemies", whether true or not. Red does anything to Blue, it is an attack of political enemies. Trumps rhetoric doesn't help his case.

"Trump says that Gaetz will "root out systemic corruption at the DOJ." There is no systemic corruption at the Department, but there is systemic bias that needs to be dealt with."
That may be, but here is a question: Is that better?
Which of these hypotheticals is worse:
1. A prosecutor targets blacks because he is racist (personal bias).
2. A prosecutor targets blacks because he is ambitious and believes his superiors are racist and that it is the best way to get promoted (institutional bias).
3. A prosecutor targets blacks because he is amoral and racists are trading him favors and paying him to (corrupt).

I'd suggest they are all bad and need to be rooted out and that "corruption" would be a catchall phase for it.

"who is under investigation for..."
Agreed. I wouldn't have advised this pick for this reason alone. That said, look at it from Trump's POV... he was investigated, impeached, indicted, and convicted of a whole slew of things for that better part of the past 8 years. It wouldn't be hard to believe that Trump either believes he is completely innocent of many of these (like the Steele dossier), or that much of them are inflated or even out and out prosecutorial misconduct (like turning a few misdemeanor record keeping offences into nearly three dozen felonies). Even from the outside, a lot of them looked very much like political bias. If you spent 8 years being attacked by institutionalized political opposition, why wouldn't you believe that are doing the same sorts of things to some of your strong political allies?

Is he a good pick? Well, he has very high "entertaining reality TV" type potential and that is good enough for me.

[Noscitur a sociis]

Will the end result be worth it? Who the hell knows.

Sounds like a great plan, then!

[SRG2]

It wouldn’t be hard to believe that Trump either believes

I think that Trump believes he's above the law or doesn't care about what the law is.

[Kazinski]

"There is no systemic corruption at the Department, but there is systemic bias that needs to be dealt with."

Problem is the systemic bias led them over the edge into at least some corruption.

Now Kevin Clinesmith might be the only actual conviction for corruption, but it certainly is illustrative of the pressure and culture in the DOJ to get Trump, as illustrated by Peter Stzrok's texts:

”[Trump is] not ever going to become president, right? Right?!” Page, who also worked on Mueller’s staff, responded.

“No. No he won’t. We’ll stop it,” Strzok texted back.

That's past bias, that is corruption.

[jdgalt1]

Trump selected Gaetz for one reason: his belief that Gaetz, out of blind loyalty, will use the Justice Department to take on the president's enemies. No AG, whether appointed by a Democrat or a Republican, should ever assume that role.

This is confession through projection. All of the Obama and Biden administrations' lawfare against Trump, from RussiaGate to the present day, are politically motivated lies, and everybody in power knows it. (As do those of us who get our news from honest alt-media sites rather than the Operation Mockingbird-controlled Big Media.)

The Democrat appointed prosecutors and judges in our nation's courts, and especially those of D.C. and New York, have created and justified widespread disrepute upon our judicial system by bias and corruption, not just against Trump but also against Trump allies such as Alex Jones. The partisan hacks that have rammed through every one of these cases need not just to be removed from office, but to go to prison and be disbarred for life. Trump's and Gaetz's mission in doing so is not partisan misuse of the courts; it will be the necessary cure for the last decade of partisan misuse of the courts by their opponents.

The media who have helped the government to carry out this crime spree can never be trusted again. I know which side of this conflict I'm on.