Last week Matt Gaetz backed-out from becoming the nations top law enforcer - a position offered to him by president-elect Donald Trump just seven days earlier
I had excellent meetings with several senators‚ but its clear that my confirmation was unfairly becoming a distraction to the critical work of the Trump/Vance Transition
The ex-Florida repʼs decision came as various un-proven claims surfaced; these included accusations of improper behavior with young people and mis-use of his position (which made his Senate approval process look difficult)
Trump posted on his Truth Social platform that the former congressman was doing well but chose to step aside to avoid causing problems for the new admin: his respect for the transition process played a key role in this choice
The House Ethics group had been looking into several things about Gaetz - including claims about wrong-doing with people close to him drug-use and blocking investigations. Their work stopped when he left congress but the whole situation made his AG nomination more complex
The Justice dept also ran a separate check on Gaetz that started about 4 years ago looking into trafficking claims; they closed it early last year finding nothing to charge him with. He always said these claims werent true