Republican Senator Tommy Tuberville has predicted that the GOP-controlled Senate will rush through confirmation of former Congressman Matt Gaetz and President-elect Donald Trump's other cabinet members in early January.
Gaetz, formerly the subject of a House Ethics Committee investigation and federal criminal probe into allegations including sexual misconduct, was nominated by Trump as the next U.S. attorney general on November 13. He promptly resigned from Congress, effectively blocking the imminent release of a report on the House ethics investigation.
While Republicans will control the Senate in January, Gaetz's confirmation as attorney general is far from certain. Some GOP senators have called for the release of the House ethics report before voting to confirm the former congressman.
Tuberville, a Trump loyalist, said that confirming the president-elect's nominees "should be a no-brainer" during a Wednesday appearance on ex-Trump adviser Steve Bannon's War Room podcast. The senator suggested he would vote to confirm Gaetz unless critics prove that he is "a criminal."
"[Republicans are] not gonna take 'no' from any of these Democrats. We're in charge," Tuberville said. "It's like this Matt Gaetz and [Defense secretary nominee] Pete Hegseth, all these people that are being nominations, hey, it should be a no-brainer. Prove to me he's a criminal. If you do, I won't vote for him. And until then, he's in."
Bannon then praised the president-elect for putting "the media and the Democrats back on their back foot" with a "flood the zone" strategy of announcing Cabinet nominees who are "disrupters" and "people who are going to take the system and restructure it."
The former Trump adviser suggested that Senate Republicans should push to confirm Gaetz and other "front line" picks before the presidential inauguration on January 20, prompting Tuberville to say that the confirmations had already been planned for early January.
"We've already planned that," said Tuberville. "That's being planned as we speak. We're sworn in January 3rd...I think it's a couple days after that...But we should have [secretary of defense], the attorney general, the secretary of treasury...[Gaetz is] number one."
Newsweek reached out to the office of Republican Senator John Thune, who will be the Senate majority leader in January, via email for comment.
The Republican-controlled Senate likely cannot afford to lose more than two votes if it hopes to confirm Gaetz and other Trump nominees, as the GOP will have a 53 to 47-seat majority in early January.
Before January 20, Vice President Kamala Harris will also retain the power to break tied votes in the Senate. After Inauguration Day, the power will be transferred to Vice President-elect JD Vance.
Trump has reportedly been personally calling GOP senators to convince them to back Gaetz's confirmation. The House Ethics Committee report remains a key issue, with Speaker of the House Mike Johnson having demanded that it remain unreleased.
The bipartisan committee met on Wednesday to discuss the report but ultimately did not agree to release it. However, Democratic Congressman Sean Casten has vowed to introduce a resolution that would force the full House to vote on releasing the report.
While the report remains under wraps, some have speculated that the document could leak to the press. Information that may be included in the report, such as testimony from a woman who alleges that Gaetz had sex with her when she was 17, was reportedly downloaded in a hacking incident on Monday.
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