U.S. President-elect Donald Trump announced on Wednesday that he has selected Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz to serve as attorney general and former Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard to serve as director of national intelligence.
Gaetz is a polarizing figure and close Trump ally who is currently the subject of a House Ethics Committee investigation into allegations that Gaetz may have “engaged in sexual misconduct and illicit drug use, accepted improper gifts, dispensed special privileges and favors to individuals with whom he had a personal relationship, and sought to obstruct government investigations of his conduct.” Gaetz has denied the allegations.
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump announced on Wednesday that he has selected Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz to serve as attorney general and former Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard to serve as director of national intelligence.
Gaetz is a polarizing figure and close Trump ally who is currently the subject of a House Ethics Committee investigation into allegations that Gaetz may have “engaged in sexual misconduct and illicit drug use, accepted improper gifts, dispensed special privileges and favors to individuals with whom he had a personal relationship, and sought to obstruct government investigations of his conduct.” Gaetz has denied the allegations.
Last year, the Justice Department also investigated him in a sex trafficking probe. The department concluded its investigation in 2023 without bringing charges against Gaetz. Gaetz also denied the allegations in that case.
“Matt is a deeply gifted and tenacious attorney,” Trump said in a post on his Truth Social social media platform. “Matt will end Weaponized Government, protect our Borders, dismantle Criminal Organizations and restore Americans’ badly-shattered Faith and Confidence in the Justice Department.”
Once a Democratic congresswoman from Hawaii who ran for president as a Democratic candidate in 2020, Gabbard left the Democratic Party in 2022 to register as an independent and has since become a staunch Trump supporter. She deployed to Iraq from 2004 to 2005 as a major in the Hawaii National Guard and is now a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army Reserves, but she has little direct intelligence experience. If confirmed by the Senate, Gabbard would oversee the U.S. intelligence community.
Gabbard has been a vocal critic of U.S. military intervention in Syria, and in 2017, she met with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad at a time when the U.S. government had labeled him a war criminal for his use of chemical weapons against his own people. She has also blamed the Biden administration for failing to prevent the war in Ukraine, writing on X as Russia was launching its full-scale invasion: “This war and suffering could have easily been avoided if Biden Admin/NATO had simply acknowledged Russia’s legitimate security concerns regarding Ukraine’s becoming a member of NATO, which would mean US/NATO forces right on Russia’s border.” In June 2022, she co-wrote a piece for Foreign Policy arguing that Ukraine had no realistic chances of defeating Russia and that the United States should push for a settlement to end the war.
Trump lauded Gabbard for her “fearless spirit” in a post on Truth Social announcing her nomination for the intelligence role. “Tulsi will make us all proud!”
This post is part of FP’s ongoing coverage of the Trump transition. Follow along here.
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