Dems' Gaetz outrage follows long history of questionable DOJ acts under Biden
Criticisms have mounted surrounding President-elect Trump naming former Rep. Matt Gaetz as his pick for U.S. attorney general, following nearly four years of actions taken by the Biden administration’s Department of Justice that came under fierce fire from conservatives.
Trump named Gaetz as his pick for attorney general last Wednesday, coming as a surprise to both conservatives and liberals alike. Democrats have notably slammed the choice, citing the House Ethics Committee’s investigation into Gaetz’s alleged sexual misconduct with a minor. Gaetz has long denied any wrongdoing, and the Trump transition team said they are confident the Senate will confirm Gaetz.
"I know Matt personally. He is a great person. He's a man of integrity. He also is a brilliant litigator. He served on the House Judiciary Committee for eight years. Anyone who has watched him in those hearings knows that he's incredibly impressive," Karoline Leavitt, the transition team’s spokesperson and Trump’s recently announced pick for press secretary, said on Fox News last week.
"Like President Trump, Matt Gaetz has been a victim of the weaponized Department of Justice, and one of the promises President Trump made to the American people was to root out the corruption at the DOJ. We have seen this agency turn against the American people because of their political beliefs. Matt Gaetz and President Trump are going to put an end to that, and that's what the American people want. That's why they elected him," Leavitt added.
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The Biden administration’s Department of Justice, led by Attorney General Merrick Garland, has repeatedly come under fire for a series of actions viewed as targeting conservatives.
The DOJ was heavily criticized by parents nationwide in 2021, when Garland issued a memo directing the FBI to use counterterrorism tools related to parents speaking out at school board meetings against transgender-related issues and critical race theory curricula. The memorandum followed the National School Boards Association (NSBA) sending a letter to President Biden, asking that the federal government investigate parents protesting at school board meetings, claiming school officials were facing threats at meetings.
The NSBA requested that parents' actions should be examined under the Patriot Act as "domestic terrorists," sparking Garland’s eventual memo, which did not use the phrase "domestic terrorist."
"After surveying local law enforcement, U.S. Attorney’s offices around the country reported back to Main Justice that there was no legitimate law-enforcement basis for the Attorney General’s directive to use federal law-enforcement and counterterrorism resources to investigate school board-related threats," the House Judiciary Committee stated in an interim report on the memo last year.
Garland testified before the Senate last year that the memo "was aimed at violence and threats of violence against a whole host of school personnel," not parents "making complaints to their school board," but the memo set off a firestorm of criticism from parents, nonetheless.
"The premier law enforcement agency of the United States of America, the FBI, was used as a weapon by the DOJ against parents who dared to voice their concerns at the most local level – their school board," Moms For Liberty founder Tiffany Justice told Fox News Digital last year.
Other parents sounded off on social media, facetiously asking if they looked like a "domestic terrorist," and others stating "arrest me" online in response to protesting liberal school policies.
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The Biden DOJ again came under fire for claims it was fraudulently targeting religious Catholics when the FBI arrested a Pennsylvania dad in 2022 who frequently prayed outside of abortion clinics.
Mark Houck, a Catholic dad of seven who would often pray outside a Philadelphia abortion clinic, was arrested at his rural Pennsylvania home in Kintnersville by the FBI. The arrest stemmed from an altercation he had with a Planned Parenthood escort in Philadelphia in October 2021. Houck was accused of pushing the abortion clinic escort, who allegedly verbally harassed Houck's 12-year-old son outside the clinic.
The Biden administration alleged Houck violated the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, which makes it a federal crime to use force with the intent to injure, intimidate and interfere with anyone because that person provides reproductive health care.
Houck was acquitted by a jury last year, after arguing that he was protecting his son. He and his wife Ryan-Marie argued the FBI used excessive force during the arrest, filing a lawsuit against the DOJ earlier this year alleging the arrest followed a "faulty and malicious investigation."
In Georgia, the DOJ came under fire for suing the state after it passed the Election Integrity Act of 2021, which overhauled its election laws, including limiting ballot drop box locations and requiring absentee voters to provide a form of identification – such as a driver’s license or the last four digits of their Social Security number – when requesting an absentee ballot.
Biden, along with Democrats nationwide and Hollywood actors who frequently film in the Peach State, sounded off on the election laws, including the 46th president calling them "Jim Crow 2.0."
"This is Jim Crow in the 21st century. It must end. We have a moral and constitutional obligation to act," Biden said in March 2021.
"This law, like so many others being pursued by Republicans in statehouses across the country is a blatant attack on the Constitution and good conscience. Among the outrageous parts of this new state law, it ends voting hours early so working people can’t cast their vote after their shift is over. It adds rigid restrictions on casting absentee ballots that will effectively deny the right to vote to countless voters," Biden added.
The DOJ filed a lawsuit against the state, claiming that portions of the law had a "purpose of denying or abridging the right to vote on account of race," the DOJ said in a press release at the time.
"The right of all eligible citizens to vote is the central pillar of our democracy, the right from which all other rights ultimately flow," said Garland in a statement at the time. "This lawsuit is the first step of many we are taking to ensure that all eligible voters can cast a vote; that all lawful votes are counted; and that every voter has access to accurate information."
Conservatives slammed the Biden administration and Democrats for "fearmongering" following the 2022 election cycle, which reported record-smashing early-voting numbers after Democrats claimed the laws would prevent some voters from casting ballots.
Simultaneous to running for re-election, Trump had juggled a handful of lawsuits leading up to Nov. 5, including charges brought against him by Special Counsel Jack Smith. Garland appointed Smith as special counsel, with the Trump legal team arguing the AG "violated the Appointments Clause by naming private-citizen Smith to target President Trump."
Smith indicted Trump in Washington, D.C., over alleged efforts to overturn the outcome of the 2020 election, as well as federal charges against the former president in Florida for his handling of classified documents after leaving the White House. The judge presiding over the Florida case tossed it over the summer, which Smith quickly appealed.
Following Trump’s massive electoral win this month, however, Smith began winding the cases down as DOJ policy forbids criminal charges against a sitting president.
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Following the controversies within the DOJ under the Biden administration, Democrats are slamming Trump for naming Gaetz as his pick for attorney general. Gaetz resigned from the House of Representatives following Trump’s announcement, but he still needs to be confirmed by the Senate in order to officially become attorney general in the second Trump administration.
"Three recent Trump nominees – Gaetz, Hegseth, and Gabbard – are far less qualified than Senate confirmation rejects like Bork, Tower, and Mier [sic]," Harvard Professor Lawrence Summers, who served in the Clinton and Obama administrations, posted on X, referencing Supreme Court nominees Robert Bork and Harriet Miers and Defense secretary nominee John Tower. "I hope that the Senate will do its duty."
"This is going to be a red alert moment for American democracy. Matt Gaetz is being nominated for one reason and one reason only: Because he will implement Donald Trump's transition of the Department of Justice from an agency that stands up for all of us to an agency that is simply an arm of the White House designed to persecute and prosecute Trump's political enemies," Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., said last week.
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"It's just kind of like a God-tier kind of trolling just to trigger a meltdown," Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., said. "But, really, the Dems' opinions on Gaetz, that's not really what's interesting. The good ones are going to come by my colleagues on the other side, the GOP, on how they can justify voting for that j--- off."
While some Republicans have also sounded off on the choice and predicted that Gaetz won’t make it through the confirmation process, conservatives such as Fox News’ Mark Levin and Wisconsin Republican Sen. Ron Johnson shut down such criticisms.
"The Democrat Party nominated and supported Tim Walz for vice president. I don't want to hear from that party or its media that any of the Trump nominees are unqualified for their posts. They have demonstrated that they have no standards at all when it comes to selecting even a vice-presidential candidate. Every Trump nominee has a solid record. Perspective is very important," Levin posted to X last week.
Johnson held up a photo of assistant HHS Secretary Rachel Levine and former senior Department of Energy official Sam Brinton when asked about the selection of Gaetz last week, asking, "Did you ask Democratic senators about this?" Levine is the first openly transgender individual to be confirmed by the Senate, while Brinton identifies as nonbinary and was arrested for baggage theft at airports before he departed the DOE.
Fox News Digital's Andrew Mark Miller, Gabriel Hays and Julia Johnson contributed to this report.