Former Florida congressman Matt Gaetz will not become attorney general, withdrawing from consideration this week after he spent a day on Capitol Hill learning that at least four Republicans would oppose his nomination — enough to tank it on the Senate floor.
On the most basic level, this shows that President-elect Donald Trump feels constrained by the constitutional order. It also suggests that enough Republicans will refuse to let him make “recess appointments” — a maneuver of questionable constitutionality that would have allowed Mr. Trump to install high executive branch officers without Senate consent, at least in extreme circumstances such as Mr. Gaetz’s nomination. And it indicates that there is a decisive bloc of GOP senators who still take seriously the chamber’s responsibility to advise and consent on presidential nominees. Mr. Trump won election fair and square. But so did those who sit in Congress. He cannot do whatever he likes.
