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It took <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/donald-trump/" target="_blank" class="contextual_link">Donald Trump</a> scarcely a week to demonstrate his utter contempt for the government he is about to lead, culminating in his choice of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/11/14/gaetz-senate-nomination-ethics-investigation/" target=_blank>Matt Gaetz to be attorney general</a>. The Senate cannot allow this dangerous man to become the nation’s chief law enforcement officer.

Trump’s appointments briefly looked fine, normal even, with <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/11/13/trump-marco-rubio-secretary-state-foreign-policy/" target=_blank>Marco Rubio</a> to be secretary of state and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2024/11/12/trump-appointees-china-hawks-rubio-waltz-stefanik/" target=_blank>Elise Stefanik</a> to be ambassador to the United Nations.

<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/interactive/trump-administration-appointees/" target=_blank>They went downhill from there</a>, with candidates manifestly underqualified for the positions for which they were selected — former New York congressman Lee Zeldin, who has no real experience on environmental issues, to lead the Environmental Protection Agency; South Dakota Gov. Kristi L. Noem to head the sprawling Department of Homeland Security; and Fox News host Pete Hegseth to serve as defense secretary, despite his absence of serious management or defense policy experience.

Then things went from insulting to untenable. Trump tapped former representative Tulsi Gabbard to be the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/11/13/tulsi-gabbard-syria-assad/" target=_blank>director of national intelligence</a>. It’s bad enough that Gabbard lacks any experience on intelligence matters, but even more scary that she has cozied up to Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad and Russian President Vladimir Putin. <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2024/11/tulsi-gabbard-nomination-security/680649/" target=_blank>As Tom Nichols wrote</a> in the Atlantic, “A person with Gabbard’s views should not be allowed anywhere near the crown jewels of American intelligence.”

Thursday’s news — <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/11/14/trump-administration-transition/" target=_blank>Trump’s choice of anti-vaxxer</a> Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to be secretary of health and human services — was more of the shocking same.

But nothing in the history of presidential Cabinet choices compares with Trump’s selection of Gaetz. Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton <a href="https://apnews.com/article/matt-gaetz-republican-reaction-trump-attorney-general-a8305807885de3d641091d01bffb4074" target=_blank>called it</a> “the worst nomination for a Cabinet secretary in American history,” and that doesn’t seem like an overstatement.

The choice of Gaetz reflects Trump unleashed. I’m told Gaetz was not even among the candidates vetted for the attorney general post — those names included Clarence Thomas ally Mark Paoletta and Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey. They would have been bad enough.

But the toddler wants what the toddler wants, and in Trump’s case that is someone  willing to indulge his  desires to exact retribution, someone unconcerned about barreling through department rules and norms against politicizing prosecutions, someone who would not resist a Trump edict no matter how out of line.

Here, the very antics that so repelled even his Republican colleagues — Gaetz’s performative histrionics in the service of Trump, his embrace of conspiracy theories no matter how outlandish (antifa was responsible for the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/january-6-capitol-riot/" target="_blank" class="contextual_link">Jan. 6</a> insurrection) — were a plus-up for the president-elect.

Before the election, Trump’s choice for vice president, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/jd-vance/" target="_blank" class="contextual_link">JD Vance</a>, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/10/14/vance-trump-attorney-general-justice-garland/" target=_blank>termed the attorney general post</a> “the most important job after president of the United States,” adding, “We really want the American people to believe that we have a fair and equitable administration of justice. If not, the entire sort of system falls apart. You need people to believe that if the attorney general prosecutes somebody, it’s motivated by justice and law and not by politics.”

The <a href="https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/federal-judiciary-act" target="_blank">Judiciary Act of 1789</a> created the post of attorney general, calling for “a meet person, learned in the law.” No sane person would argue Gaetz fits that description. Most candidates for attorney general don’t feel compelled to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/17/matt-gaetz-pardon-sex-trafficking-probe/" target="_blank">seek preemptive pardons</a> from a departing president.

Leaving aside his repellent behavior in Congress, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/11/13/trump-attorney-general-matt-gaetz-justice-department/c30a986a-a219-11ef-be87-1106a06524c6_story.html" target=_blank>Gaetz was the subject of</a> a Justice Department — yes, that Justice Department — probe into sex trafficking of minors. (The department ultimately didn’t bring charges and Gaetz denied wrongdoing.) Gaetz resigned just two days before the House Ethics Committee, which has been investigating allegations that Gaetz engaged in sexual misconduct, used drugs and accepted improper gifts, was planning to issue <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/11/13/matt-gaetz-ethics-investigation-resign/" target=_blank>a damning report</a>. Put it this way: No mother says to her son, “Why can’t you be more like Matt Gaetz.”

Some see method to Trump’s madness, a you-scratch-my-back play that goes like this: Gaetz knew he wouldn’t get confirmed as attorney general but seized on the opportunity to get out of Congress before the ethics report was released. Trump doesn’t mind having a nominee go up in flames, because Gaetz’s demise will clear the way for other controversial nominees who might otherwise have failed. Senate rebellion, such as it is, only goes so far.

Maybe. But. Trump is a man who hates losing. When has he ever engaged in a tactical loss that would be seen as a personal humiliation to reap a benefit down the road?

My fear is twofold. One possibility is that not enough Senate Republicans, despite their revulsion for Gaetz, will have the guts to stand up to Trump. History does not augur well for backbone on the part of elected officials defying Trump.

A second, even scarier, is that Trump, if senators defy him, will employ a never-before-used option, outlined in the Constitution, that grants the president power to unilaterally adjourn Congress if the two houses are unable to agree on a time for adjournment. If Trump were to do so, he could then use his constitutional authority to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/11/11/trump-senate-recess-appointments-powergrab/" target=_blank>grant recess appointments</a> during that period.

And a man with the power of an attorney general and the character of a Gaetz would be enormously dangerous. Imagine: A Trump-Gaetz Justice Department concocting charges against, say, Liz Cheney. It is close to impossible to imagine such a prosecution succeeding, but it is also true that a federal judge assigned to oversee such a case would find it difficult to throw out such a case before it came before a jury. From the Trump-Gaetz point of view, forcing Cheney to endure the expense and indignity of a trial might be punishment enough.

Taking office in 1975 in the aftermath of Watergate, a scandal that claimed Richard M. Nixon and his attorney general and tarnished the department, Gerald Ford’s straight-arrow attorney general, Edward H. Levi, emphasized the importance of the rule of law.

“We have lived in a time of change and corrosive skepticism and cynicism concerning the administration of justice,” <a href="https://archive.org/stream/subverting-justice-senate-judiciary-committee/" target="_blank">Levi said at his swearing in</a>. “Nothing can more weaken the quality of life or more imperil the realization of those goals we all hold dear than our failure to make clear by word and deed that our law is not an instrument of partisan purpose, and it is not an instrument to be used in ways which are careless of the higher values which are within all of us.”

What would Levi say now? There is something worse than a clown in Congress. That is a clown invested with subpoena power and the authority to convene a federal grand jury.

Post Opinions wants to know: If you’re a federal employee, how are you thinking about your job and the changes that the next administration may bring? What do you think government could be doing better? <a href="https://thewashingtonpost.formstack.com/forms/2024_election_federal_workers" target=_blank>Share your thoughts with us and they may be published as letters to the editor</a>.

Finalist, Pulitzer Prize for commentary, 2007

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Ruth Marcus is an associate editor and columnist for The Post.

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