Trump drops a cabinet-level clusterbomb with Gaetz, Gabbard as latest picks

The gasps echoing across Washington on Wednesday proved that Donald Trump retains the capacity to shock. That's just what he did with some boundary-busting cabinet picks. 

Members of his own party expressed astonishment at news of the president-elect's choices to oversee law enforcement and national intelligence: Matt Gaetz for attorney general and Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence.

The question is whether he will bypass standard procedures to install them in office, in an early test of the incoming president's power over the country's institutions.

A string of congressional Republicans expressed bewilderment, in particular, over news that the Justice Department could be entrusted to Gaetz, their firebrand colleague from Florida.

Gaetz did practise law before politics but is now best known as an ardent political pitbull for Trump. He has recently called for investigating Jack Smith, the special counsel who prosecuted Trump.

He has also been investigated for sex-trafficking involving a minor, illicit drug use, and accepting improper gifts, allegations he has denied.

Gaetz resigned from Congress just hours after getting the nomination, allowing a speedy replacement by special election in Florida. This is also reportedly a few days before an ethics committee was scheduled to release a report into his behaviour.

Republicans who heard the news during a meeting said there were audible murmurs of surprise. 

"Everybody was saying, 'Oh my God,'" Republican Rep. Mike Simpson of Idaho said, according to The Associated Press. "That was about as big a surprise as I've had in a long time."

The choice now heads to the Senate. There, Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski called this an unserious nomination: "This one was not on my bingo card."

North Carolina Republican Thom Tillis predicted a rough ride for Gaetz in the confirmation process, according to the congressional newsletter Punchbowl News.

However, the appointment was celebrated by hard-right Trump allies who expressed hope Gaetz would, in fact, crack down on the officials who investigated Trump. House Speaker Mike Johnson also credited Gaetz as extremely smart, and the kind of disrupter the Justice Department needs. 

It's now abundantly clear why the incoming president is pressing allies to shut down the Senate in early January and let him install them through so-called recess appointments. Lawmakers would have to co-operate with an extended recess.

Because under normal circumstances, it is highly uncertain, to put it mildly, that the Senate would give Gaetz control of the nation's justice system and Gabbard its national secrets.