Trump's cabinet is a 'grab bag' of 'freaks' — and that could save democracy: legal expert

Former federal prosecutor Ken White on Thursday took stock of President-elect Donald Trump's picks to serve in his cabinet and came away with a surprisingly optimistic assessment.

White believes that Trump's picks are very bad and will do very bad things with the power they have.

However, he also believes them to be undisciplined self-promoters who will overall be ineffective at consolidating power inside the executive branch.

The prime example of this, argues White, is Trump's decision to pick scandal-plagued former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) to be his attorney general.

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"Gaetz is a buffoon," White states bluntly in an analysis posted on his personal webpage. "He has absolutely no qualifications to run the Department of Justice. Can he wander around firing everyone? Yes. Does he understand how the Department of Justice works in a way that would allow him to maximize its potential for abuse? No. Is he smart enough to figure it out? Also no. Is he charismatic enough to persuade insiders to help him use it effectively? Very much no. Gaetz as Attorney General will do petty, flamboyant, stupid things in clumsy ways. Some of those things will be very bad. But clown shoes are preferable to jackboots."

White then proceeds to rifle through other proposed Trump appointees including Kristi Noem, Pete Hegseth, and Tulsi Gabbard, and finds all of them similarly lacking in the talents that would be required to build an autocracy.

"The people he picks tend to be a grab bag of personality disorders who squabble and fight for power, he tends to screw them over when they annoy him, and they’re all quite annoying," White observes. "I’m not saying that things won’t be bad. As I’ve said recently, I expect things to be very bad for a long time, possibly a generation, as a result of America’s choice. What I am saying is that perhaps they will not be as bad as they could be because God, in His wisdom, has chosen to make these people weird freaks along the way to letting them run the place."