Matt Gaetz seems to be enjoying the unemployed life.
The former Florida representative resigned from Congress after Donald Trump nominated him to be attorney general, only to pull his name from consideration from the post roughly a week later after it became clear the Senate would not confirm him. It had been unclear, however, if Gaetz would opt to rejoin the next Congress in January, having won his reelection bid earlier this month. He told right-wing commentator Charlie Kirk on Friday that he's done with Capitol Hill.
“I'm still going to be in the fight, but it's going to be from a new perch,” he said. “I do not intend to join the 119th Congress.”
Rolling Stone reported on Thursday that multiple people within Trump's orbit are pushing for the president-elect to give Gaetz a plum job in the White House — one that would not require Senate confirmation, of course, given the rumor that he had sex with a 17-year-old -old girl in 2017.
Shortly after he told Kirk that he wouldn't be joining Congress next year, Gaetz teased on X, formerly Twitter, that his next phase could involve dishing on his now-former colleagues. “Stock trading is such a huge part of congress,” he wrote. “It shouldn't be. I can't wait to tell all these stories of corruption, treason, and betrayal. Coming soon.”
There may be some stories still to tell about Gaetz, too. There was concern in Trump's orbit ahead of his decision to punt on attorney general that he could be, as one Trump adviser put it to Rolling Stone“the single most blackmail-able person to ever serve as attorney general of the United States” — given what appears to be a widespread belief that what is publicly known about Gaetz's alleged sexual misconduct only represents the tip of the iceberg.
Regardless, Gaetz indicated to Kirk on Friday that he could have weathered the scrutiny and become attorney general, and that he only backed out because the process would have taken too long. “It was more a matter of peace than anything,” he said. “The peace was just going to be too long for me.”
Sure it was.
