Donald Trump shocked nearly everyone on Capitol Hill with his choices for attorney general and director of national intelligence, and a pair of panelists on CNN disagreed over how their nominations would play out.
The president-elect chose former lawmakers Matt Gaetz to lead the Justice Department and Tulsi Gabbard to head up U.S. spy agencies, and conservative commentator Shermichael Singleton believes he'll face an uphill battle getting them confirmed.
"I think the president-elect has to decide if he wants to expend any political capital on this, and you can't afford to lose four to five votes if this were to make it out of committee," Singleton said. "So if he really wants Gaetz he has to begin the process of making calls to Republicans on the committee so it can go before the entire Senate, but I think a bigger and fascinating component is what exactly is Donald Trump's ethos as it pertains to the DOJ and prosecutors writ large, and I think what this signals is the president-elect believes the prosecutors have too much power, too much influence and too much discretion, and he's attempting to send a signal to prosecutors at the federal level and maybe even down that he wants someone who's going to be a complete disruptor, a wrecking ball to the DOJ, to radically change and transform the place based on his experiences, so that within itself is fascinating for a litany of reasons."
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CNN's Sarah Sidner that Gaetz faced a DOJ investigation into sex trafficking allegations, and she asked former White House adviser Paul Begala whether his nomination indicated Trump intended to seek vengeance on an agency that prosecuted him.
"Those charges [against Gaetz] were not followed through, the Biden Justice Department, which is always accused of bias by the right, said there wasn't enough evidence to pursue," said Begala, a former adviser to Bill Clinton. "I wish Shermichael were right, I wish he was just concerned about prosecutorial overreach – he's not. He doesn't want a Department of Justice, he wants a department of vengeance."
Begala also doubted Singleton's assurances that both Gaetz and Gabbard would be thoroughly vetted by an a FBI background check and then tested by a Senate confirmation process.
"He will force the Republican Senate to confirm, and they always bend to his will," Begala said. "If you do an MRI, you will never find a spine, they're utterly spineless. He will put a recess appointment in, and that will subvert the Senate, by the way, you want a prediction? He's going to subvert the FBI background process because people say Mr. Gaetz has sketchy things in his background, he won't have a background check. He will be submitted without a background check. Why? Because of what the source told our reporter, he wants to insult the Senate, it's Caligula in the year 38 in Rome appointed Incitatus, his horse, consul of Rome in part because he wanted to show contempt for the Senate."
"I'm not sure there's going to be a vote," Begala continued. "If it looks like he doesn't have the votes and he will get it, he will put in a recess appointment, and I hope Shermichael is right, there always has been a background check in the FBI, [but] I don't think there will be this time. Why am I so sure? They've hinted at that from Trumpland. Second, it's already been done, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse released a six-year study of how the FBI followed up on tips of the allegations against Brett Kavanagh when he was Trump's nominee for the Supreme Court, and you ought to read the report. He says the tipline the FBI set up, all the tips they didn't go to the FBI, Trump had them diverted to the White House, how the White House was being tipped off about the accusers were and what the evidence was."
"He's going to politicize the FBI and he will take the Senate out of the confirmation process," Begala added, "and that's why some of his closest aides in his first term use the word fascist about him now."
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