Hardline Republican Matt Gaetz withdrew his name from consideration as President-elect Donald Trump\u2019s attorney general, in the face of opposition from the Senate Republicans whose support he would have needed to win the job. Gaetz, who resigned from the US House of Representatives last week, was the subject of an Ethics Committee probe into allegations of having sex with a 17-year-old girl. He has denied wrongdoing. \u201cThere is no time to waste on a needlessly protracted Washington scuffle, thus I\u2019ll be withdrawing my name from consideration to serve as attorney general,\u201d Gaetz wrote in a post on X. \u201cTrump\u2019s Department of Justice must be in place and ready on Day 1.\u201d Gaetz, who was nominated last week, faced questions over his qualifications to serve as the country\u2019s top law enforcement official and his past conduct. He was investigated by the Justice Department for nearly three years into potential sex trafficking violations, a probe that ended last year without charges being brought. Some Republican senators expressed misgivings about his nomination, though none had said publicly they would outright oppose him. Republican Senator Cynthia Lummis said Gaetz\u2019s decision would give Trump the opportunity to nominate an attorney general with fewer headwinds in the Senate. Gaetz was first elected to the US House of Representatives in 2016 and won reelection this month, but he resigned as a congressman shortly after Trump picked him to be attorney general. Trump said Gaetz had a \u201cwonderful future\u201d despite his withdrawal. Writing on his Truth Social social network, Trump praised Gaetz for stepping aside to avoid being a \u201cdistraction\u201d for his new administration, adding: \u201cMatt has a wonderful future, and I look forward to watching all of the great things he will do! \u201c Several of Trump\u2019s nominations have triggered criticism, and the latest transition turmoil came as new lurid details emerged about defence nominee Pete Hegseth. He was investigated for sexual assault after a complaint from an unnamed woman at a 2017 conference in California. The New York Times reported details from the police investigation, which was closed without Hegseth being charged. The married woman told officers that she suffered from memory loss and thought her drink might have been spiked, while Hegseth said the encounter was consensual.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hardline Republican Matt Gaetz withdrew his name from consideration as President-elect Donald Trump\u2019s attorney general, in the face of opposition from the Senate Republicans whose…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"registered_only","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-world"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21209","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21209"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21209\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}