Gaetz is the first Cabinet-level nominee tapped to serve in Trump’s upcoming administration to withdraw, although several have faced scrutiny over past behavior.
When he resigned from Congress last week he said his decision applied to his current term as well as to the new one that would begin on Jan 3. But independent experts and a congressional source indicated that he still had the option of changing his mind on the upcoming term and returning to office then.
Another Trump nominee, Fox News personality Pete Hegseth, who was tapped as Defense Secretary, has also been engulfed in controversy for alleged sexual misconduct.
As Gaetz’s path to confirmation looked imperilled, Trump had been calling senators and telling them how committed he was to Gaetz, according to a source close to the president-elect.
Billionaire Elon Musk, a Trump ally, had been using his social media platform X to go to bat for Gaetz, attacking the former congressman’s critics and praising his selection.
Musk had posted about Gaetz 34 times since Trump announced his nomination on Nov 13, depicting Gaetz as an outsider who would be willing to disrupt the system.
Republican Senator Cynthia Lummis said Gaetz’s decision to drop out would give Trump the opportunity to nominate an attorney general “with fewer headwinds in the Senate”.
The House Ethics Committee deadlocked five to five on party lines on Wednesday on whether to release the findings of its probe into Gaetz.
A Florida attorney said this week that two women testified to the panel that they were paid for sex with Gaetz and one witnessed Gaetz having sex with a 17-year-old girl in 2017.
“From everything that built up to this point, it doesn’t surprise me,” Republican Senator Mike Braun said of Gaetz’s decision.
Other Republicans expressed disappointment.
“I had a very important relationship with Matt,” said Senator Rick Scott, who like Gaetz is from Florida. Scott said he hopes Trump picks “whoever is going to be a fighter for getting the Department of Justice to stop being a partisan entity”.
