Senate Republicans feel the heat over Trump’s nomination of Gaetz

Senate Republicans are feeling the heat from President-elect Donald Trump and his allies as they seek access to a potentially damning report on attorney general designate Matt Gaetz’s sex misconduct, teeing up one of the toughest confirmation battles the 47th president is expected to face.

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), who will chair the powerful Judiciary panel that vets political appointees in the new Congress, became the highest-ranking Republican to call for the report’s release on the former Florida Republican lawmaker Tuesday.

“I’m saying to the people that want any Cabinet person to get through, not just Gaetz, it’s going to be a lot faster if you give us the information that we want,” Grassley told reporters.

“If they want a speedy consideration of this nomination we’ve got to have as much transparency as we can have,” he added during another run-in with reporters. “You’ve heard my colleagues, especially on the Republican side, say that they have some questions.”

Grassley, 91, harked back to the firestorm that erupted over now-Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination back in 2018 and recounted the “good work” staffers did to investigate the allegations against him.

While the Gaetz dossier could dramatically speed up the confirmation process, according to the Iowa senator, other key Senate Republicans have signaled they may not bend to pressure from Trump over the nomination.

Privately, the president-elect has acknowledged that he faces an uphill battle to get Gaetz over the finish line but has resolved to spend some political capital on it nonetheless, the New York Times reported.

The House Ethics Committee has heard from multiple witnesses alleging that Gaetz paid at least two women for sex and had flagrante delicto with a minor. The ex-Florida GOPer has denied wrongdoing and his abrupt resignation from the House last week forced the committee to consider whether or not to release the report it’s been compiling.

Though House Speaker Mike Johnson and Ethics Committee Chairman Michael Guest (R-Miss.) have said they are opposed to putting the report out, there is precedent for the move.

House lawmakers in December 1987 released an unfinished report following a probe of Rep. Bill Boner (D-Tenn.), who resigned two months earlier to run for Nashville mayor, over his relationship with a government contractor.

The panel is set to vote on whether to release the report Wednesday, with its top Democrat, Pennsylvania Rep. Susan Wild, already arguing for its publication.

The two most moderate members of the Senate Republican Conference, Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Susan Collins (R-Maine), both of whom voted to convict Trump during his second impeachment, were tight-lipped on Tuesday about Gaetz after expressing skepticism last week.

An exasperated-looking Murkowski vented “I talked to a lot of you today,” when asked by The Post if she had spoken with Trump on the Gaetz nomination.

Collins, who is one of the most politically vulnerable Republican senators up for reelection in 2026, carefully kept her options open when reporters tried to pin down her stance on the Gaetz controversy.

“I truly don’t know what President Trump’s thoughts on this [are],” Collins told reporters. “The constitutional role of the Senate should be respected. We need decent court nominees. We need to have a background check, a Senate investigation, and a public hearing just as we have always done with Cabinet nominees.”

“I would oppose trying to do Cabinet nominees or other significant nominations as recess appointments,” she added.

Trump, 78, has floated the use of a recess appointment to bypass the Senate and get Gaetz through, but the Florida firebrand would only be able to serve up to two years via that process.

Moreover, Trump would need Republican cooperation to get the Senate to adjourn for the necessary 10-day stretch without a pro forma session in order for him to secure the recess appointment.

If enough Republican senators defect and work to block him, Trump could attempt an unprecedented maneuver to adjourn the upper chamber with the help of the House of Representatives.

“I hadn’t talked to very many other people but I do look at history and every other president has done recess appointments and so why not? It’s legal,” Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) told reporters. “I hope we can do it the right way.”

Johnson (R-La.), who is forced to reckon with a rambunctious conference in the other chamber, has emerged as a key ally of Trump during his efforts to staff up the next administration.

The 52-year-old House speaker, who spent time with Trump at Mar-a-Lago and the UFC 309 over the weekend, has publicly praised Trump’s selections and opposed calls to release the ethics report on Gaetz.

Trump has contacted several senators over recent days, seeking to whip up support for what is widely considered to be one of his most controversial cabinet nominees.

“He believes Matt Gaetz is the one person who will have the fearlessness and ferociousness, really, to do what needs doing at the Department of Justice,” Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-ND), who took a call from Trump on Gaetz told Axios.

“One thing about Donald Trump, people should never confuse his support for one of his nominees as a tactical or strategic tool for somebody else,” Cramer added. “And at least to this point, he’s putting his own political capital behind it.”

Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) told reporters that he “has not” been called by either Gaetz nor Trump so far on the attorney general nomination. Others such as Sens. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and Rick Scott (R-Fla.) refused to comment on their possible communications with Trump.

Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD) stressed that the Senate still has an obligation to weigh a president’s picks.

“In the Constitution, they made it clear that the president will make nominations. I give the president the benefit of the doubt in his nominations to serve in his cabinet, but I still have a responsibility as a member of the United States Senate for advice and consent,” Rounds told reporters.

Still, GOP senators are wary of crossing Trump so early on.

“We have an incoming president that’s been there and done the job for four years. He knows exactly what he is looking for, and so you have to trust that decision-making,” Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.), an adversary of Gaetz, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Tuesday.

When Gaetz led the ouster of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in October 2023, however, Mullin claimed he previously witnessed the Florida pol bragging about his sexploitation.

“He was accused of sleeping with an underage girl,” Mullin told CNN the same month McCarthy was deposed. “There’s a reason why no one in the conference came and defended him because we had all seen the videos he was showing on the House floor … of the girls that he had slept with.”

“He’d brag about how he would crush ED medicine and chase it with energy drinks so he could go all night,” added the Oklahoma senator, who formerly served in the House.

“We all saw videos he was showing us on the House floor of girls he slept with and brag how he would crush ED medicine so he could go all night,” he told CNN that same month.

Trump had picked Gaetz to be attorney general after feeling betrayed by Jeff Session and Bill Barr during his first administration. Democrats have roundly rebuked Gaetz as the next nominee.

Gaetz can only afford to lose three votes from Republican senators if he is to get confirmed.