A former federal prosecutor complained that Donald Trump's attorney general nominee Matt Gaetz would have no chance of passing a basic background check for even a low-level job at the Department of Justice.
"There are tens of thousands of professionals in the Department of Justice. None of them, none of them could be hired for their job if they did what Matt Gaetz is accused of doing," former federal prosecutor Harry Litman said on MSNBC's "All In With Chris Hayes" Friday.
The Department of Justice last year launched and dropped an investigation against Gaetz into sex trafficking accusations involving an under-age girl. Gaetz party buddy Joel Greenberg was sentenced to 11 years in prison in 2022 after pleading guilty to multiple charges, including sex trafficking, in connection with the investigation
Gaetz was also the target of an ongoing House Ethics Committee probe into accusations of sexual relations with a minor, illicit drug use, including Ecstasy (MDMA), obstruction of an investigation, amid other allegations. The attorney who represents two women who were witnesses in the Ethics Committee probe said Friday that one of his clients told the panel she saw the congressman having sex with a minor.
But the investigation was shut down when Gaetz quickly resigned his post in the House in hopes he'll be confirmed by the Republican Senate as attorney general. The committee is unlikely to officially release any of its findings.
"MDMA is a friggin' Schedule I controlled substance," noted an angry Litman. "Anyone who did that after law school would be absolutely disqualified."
It's a "clear [emergency] 'break glass' moment," warned Litman.
"There's never been someone as unqualified: no prosecutorial experience, no legal experience to speak of. But that's the least of it," said Littman. "Someone who comes to the department with actual contempt and hostility for it, it's going to prompt a major exodus. It's going to prompt judges and juries around the country to have less credibility in the Department of Justice, which is the really stock and trade of the DOJ," he warned.
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