DAN MCLAUGHLIN: Trump has an ingenious reason for picking accused sex pest Matt Gaetz for his cabinet. But it will backfire disastrously

There's a method to Donald Trump's madness – but it's still madness.

That appears to be especially true when it comes to the President-elect's picks for his cabinet. 

On Tuesday, former Congressman Matt Gaetz arrived on Capitol Hill to meet with Republican Senators who could make or break his nomination for attorney general.

But at this juncture, even Trump reportedly thinks Gaetz has only a 50 percent chance at confirmation.

As many as 30 Republicans could oppose him, and at least two GOP senators have said they will already. Just two more firm 'no' votes would seal his fate. And Gaetz isn't winning over many new fans.

This week, an attorney for two women, who allegedly testified to the House Ethics Committee, said that Gaetz paid them for sex and invited them to a dozen drug-fueled sex parties.

One of the women claims she saw Gaetz having sex with a 17-year-old girl. If true, that would constitute statutory rape.

Gaetz has denied all wrongdoing and a previous Justice Department probe into these allegations was dropped last year, but the Washington rumor mill is merciless and it runs on people who know Gaetz up close.

Oklahoma Senator Markwayne Mullin – a former MMA fighter and MAGA loyalist – claimed last year that Gaetz would openly boast about his sexual conquests.

'We had all seen the videos he was showing on the House floor [...] of the girls that he had slept with,' Mullin said. 'He'd brag about how he would crush [erectile dysfunction] medicine and chase it with an energy drink so he could go all night.'

As of writing, Senator Mullin remains a solid 'maybe' on Gaetz.

Gambling that nothing else damaging to Gaetz comes out before his confirmation hearings is a bad bet.

This all raises the question: Why would Trump tap such a man to be the nation's chief law-enforcement officer?

It's not for his legal acumen.

Gaetz, the entitled son and grandson of prominent Florida politicians, has barely practiced law, spending just two years handling small cases at a politically connected firm before running for office. He's also never managed an organization. Most of his experience with criminal justice is as a potential defendant.

It's not that Gaetz is a loyal party man either. After Trump backed Kevin McCarthy for Speaker, Gaetz nearly handed the House to Democrats by leading a rebellion that later ousted McCarthy from the speaker's chair.

As we've already established, Gaetz does not appear to be a man of integrity. After Trump announced his AG pick last week, Gaetz resigned from the House early, perhaps to prevent the release of a pending Ethics Committee report into the allegations against him. 

He previously beat the rap before, in 2008, when he was arrested for driving under the influence but never convicted.

All of which must have been known to Trump before he selected Gaetz. And, indeed, the ensuing backlash doesn't appear to have tempered the President-elect.

Trump is reportedly now calling senators to lobby for Gaetz, while simultaneously pushing to bypass the Congress altogether.

Trump and his allies are encouraging the Senate to take an extended recess so that he can make 'recess appointments' – a constitutional loophole through which a president can fill administration vacancies if Congress is out of session.

But that would be a drastic and unprecedented step that the Supreme Court might find to be illegal. While presidents have used recess appointments before, none have demanded that the Senate let them appoint their initial Cabinet while lawmakers are still in town.

It seems Trump has chosen Gaetz for one reason: To reform the Justice Department from within. And it's a noble cause.

Attorney general is a big job, maybe the biggest on the president's team. The position demands a prudent legal counselor and grants vast powers that are dangerous in irresponsible hands. Joe Biden's attorney general unleashed all manner of crazy woke lawsuits and oversaw the appointment of the special prosecutor, Jack Smith, who charged Trump in two criminal cases.

The Justice Department, founded in 1870, is also an enormous bureaucracy that can stymie a chief executive – and Trump ran on a series of ambitious and controversial pledges to begin mass deportations, restore strict law and order, rein in the FBI and severely slim down the civil service.

Gaetz's unfitness for the job could be an asset in Trump's eyes if it prompts entrenched DOJ prosecutors and agents to resign in protest rather than serve under him. Perhaps he's being hired as a disruptor, not as a manager.

In Trump's war against the 'deep state,' Gaetz seems like a nuclear weapon.

But, even in this understanding of Trump's thinking, the Gaetz pick still isn't a good choice.

No scenario seems attractive. 

For even if he were to be confirmed as AG by the Senate, there is little likelihood that he'd know how to run the department well enough to accomplish the things Trump wants. 

On the other hand, if Gaetz were selected via a controversial recess appointment, and the Supreme Court later ruled that appointment to be illegal, everything he does in office would become invalid.

And finally, and perhaps most likely, if the Senate did go forward with confirmation hearings and then shoot down Gaetz's nomination, Trump will be setting himself against his own party's senators.

Some of those senators are up for re-election in 2026; Trump isn't. Undermining them with base voters and costing them their seats could end up reducing Trump's influence in Congress and thwart his agenda in his final two years.

Yes, Trump may have his reasons for wanting a disruptive attorney general.

All of them will backfire.