President-elect Donald Trump‘s pick for attorney general, Representative Matt Gaetz, has caused a stir in the newly Republican majority Senate, with Senator John Cornyn calling for Gaetz’s ethics report to determine his fitness and “protect the president.”
On Wednesday, Trump tapped Republican Gaetz to be his attorney general. That same day, Gaetz resigned from Congress as the representative for Florida’s 1st Congressional District.
Like other appointees, Gaetz will need Senate confirmation before taking the post. Last week’s election flipped control of the Senate to Republicans, who now hold the House and the White House.
Gaetz was under investigation by the House Ethics Committee over allegations that he “engaged in sexual misconduct and illicit drug use” and was part of a scheme that led to the sex trafficking of a 17-year-old girl. He has denied any wrongdoing.
His resignation from the House concludes the probe into his alleged misconduct, but the report could still be published if a majority of the committee agrees.
Cornyn, a Republican who sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee and lost a close, secret race for Senate majority leader to Senator John Thune yesterday, told reporters he would like to see information on Gaetz, including access to the ethics report.
Newsweek reached out to Cornyn’s office for comment via email on Thursday.
The Texas senator said, “I can’t understand any situation under which we would deny ourselves access to full and complete information,” according to Punchbowl News.
He continued, “Part of this is not only to determine fitness for the nominee, it’s also to protect the president. Because there may be information that the investigation would find forthcoming that would ultimately be an embarrassment to the president. So, this is for all of the above reasons, we need to get access to everything.”
He expanded on these comments to reporters at the Capitol, saying, “Part of this is to protect the president against information or surprises coming out later that he and his team weren’t aware of.”
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Other Republican lawmakers have expressed doubt over Gaetz’s chances of being confirmed as attorney general in January. On Wednesday, Maine Senator Susan Collins said that she was “shocked” at the nomination and expects “there will be many, many questions raised” at Gaetz’s confirmation hearing.
North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis said that he expects Gaetz has “probably got some work cut out for him” before being confirmed, adding that not “a single Democrat” will vote in his favor.
However, in the lower chamber, Colorado Representative Lauren Boebert said in a statement on X, formerly Twitter, that she was “proud of my friend and America’s next Attorney General.”
Democratic Senator Dick Durbin, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, has asked the House ethics panel to “preserve and share” their report.