President-elect Donald Trump is using ex-Congressman Matt Gaetz, his nominee for U.S. attorney general, as a “sacrificial lamb,” according to Ashley Etienne, former communications director to Vice President Kamala Harris.
Gaetz, formerly the subject of a House Ethics Committee investigation and federal criminal probe into allegations including sexual misconduct, was nominated by Trump to lead the Department of Justice (DOJ) on November 13, with the president-elect praising him as a “deeply gifted and tenacious attorney” who would “root out systemic corruption” at the DOJ.
But several Republicans have expressed doubts about Gaetz becoming attorney general, prompting speculation that his nomination could fail confirmation in the Senate. With betting odds suggesting that his pick may be a long shot for confirmation, Trump has reportedly been calling Republican senators personally in an attempt to convince them to back Gaetz.
Etienne, who also served as communications director for former President Barack Obama and ex-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, suggested during a CNN appearance on Monday night that Trump had nominated Gaetz to distract from the “danger” of his effort to make former Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard the next director of national intelligence.
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“I think Democrats are sort of thinking strategically about which battles they want to fight; you can’t swing at every ball,” Etienne said. “I think that Gaetz is a smoke screen. I think he’s gonna be a sacrificial lamb. My caution to Democrats in the Senate would be keep your eye on the ball, as Tulsi Gabbard [is] in the position to do the most harm and danger to the American people.”
After being challenged by CNN host Anderson Cooper, Etienne doubled down by arguing that the ex-congresswoman, a former Democrat who announced that she was joining the Republican Party at a Trump rally last month, had been “compromised” and was a “sympathizer” of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“Absolutely, she’s gonna be housing American secrets,” Etienne said. “It’s widely held that she’s compromised. She’s a Putin sympathizer, she pals around the world with terrorists and dictators. Absolutely people should be very concerned about who’s housing American secrets.”
“The reality is that you can get any MAGA Republican lawyer to be the AG,” she continued. “But the person who actually has, you know, American secrets, should be above reproach. And she’s not.”
In an email to Newsweek on Monday night, Trump communications director Steven Cheung wrote: “Ashley Etienne is just salty because she no longer has a grift and has now resorted to making slanderous claims because she’s trying make herself relevant after her devastating loss.”
“President Trump has nominated high-caliber, brilliant individuals to serve in his Administration because the American people gave him a clear mandate to implement pro-America policies that will undo the devastation Democrats have caused,” Cheung added.
Etienne is not the first person to suggest that Gaetz’s nomination was intended as a disposable distraction from his nomination of Gabbard, whom Republican U.S. Senator Mitt Romney of Utah once accused of “parroting fake Russian propaganda.”
“Matt Gaetz is simply the shiny object that Trump is dangling out there to distract from Tulsi Gabbard and to generate a sigh of relief when [former acting Attorney General] Matt Whitaker or some other relatively normal type is nominated to be AG after Gaetz goes down in flames,” legal scholar Laurence Tribe wrote last week on X, formerly Twitter.