Trump is calling senators directly to lobby for Gaetz AG confirmation as House Republicans weigh burying ethics report on him

By Kristen Holmes, Annie Grayer, Sarah Ferris and Manu Raju, CNN

(CNN) — President-elect Donald Trump is doubling down on his efforts to ensure former Rep. Matt Gaetz is confirmed as attorney general, calling some senators directly to discuss the Florida Republican and ask for their support, two sources familiar with the outreach told CNN.

Neither source disclosed whom Trump had reached out to, but they stressed that the president-elect had reiterated to allies how determined he is to get Gaetz confirmed.

Republicans on the House Ethics Committee, meanwhile, are weighing whether to bury a potentially damaging report on the former congressman after their investigation into him was shelved and the public release of the findings thrown into question.

Some Republican members of the panel are signaling both publicly and privately that they do not believe the report should be released, suggesting that the panel could side with Republicans like House Speaker Mike Johnson who has called for the committee to block the report from being made public.

At this point, House Republicans say the report is not ready for public release, which Democrats view as an attempt to bury the findings. But a growing number of GOP senators say the House report is essential to vetting a nominee for a critical post, setting up a potential clash between the two chambers.

The president-elect has asked allies about the likelihood of Gaetz being confirmed but has not been deterred in his efforts, despite some hesitation from those around him, multiple sources briefed on the conversations told CNN.

Trump allies have also discussed how to use the Federal Vacancies Reform Act to put Gaetz in place, which would potentially allow him to temporarily make Gaetz head of the Department of Justice in an “acting” capacity for an extended period of time.

Axios was first to report on the president-elect’s calls to senators.

Trump views Gaetz as key to Cabinet

Gaetz’s selection was almost immediately complicated by the existing House ethics probe into allegations of misconduct, including “sexual misconduct and illicit drug use.” Gaetz resigned from Congress after Trump’s announcement and shortly before the committee was expected to release details of its findings. Gaetz has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing, including ever having sex with a minor or paying for sex.

Trump’s insistence on the controversial nomination has, as CNN previously reported, drawn warnings from allies and lawmakers, who caution that Gaetz faces an uphill climb to secure the 51 votes needed for Senate approval. There is growing concern, too, that the spectacle of a Gaetz confirmation hearing might overshadow the priorities on which Trump has spent the last two years campaigning and for which he received a mandate to push through with his victory this month.

Yet the president-elect has made clear that he views Gaetz as the most important member of the Cabinet he is quickly assembling, sources with knowledge of Trump’s thinking told CNN, and he considers the nomination of the former Florida congressman an urgent priority for the new GOP majority in the Senate.

Trump wants Gaetz confirmed “100%,” a source told CNN. “He is not going to back off. He’s all in.”

Trump made his pick for attorney general hastily amid dissatisfaction with other potential candidates, but he has nevertheless grown enamored with the idea of having a political arsonist like Gaetz overseeing his promises to dismantle the Justice Department. He also believes Gaetz is uniquely positioned to defend the Trump administration on television, an attribute prioritized by the president-elect.

Trump’s pick for deputy attorney general — his defense attorney Todd Blanche — will carry out the day-to-day work of overseeing the Justice Department’s more than 40 agencies and 115,000 employees.

Fate of Gaetz ethics report in question

Gaetz’s potential confirmation has been complicated by growing calls from Senate Republicans for the House ethics panel to release its report on him.

Republicans on the panel, who have met at least once since Trump tapped Gaetz for his Cabinet, triggering his resignation, have yet to hold a full committee meeting to discuss the next steps with the report after cancelling a planned meeting last week. Some on the panel believe the group’s next meeting, scheduled for Wednesday, could again be pushed by Republicans, two sources told CNN.

The secretive panel still has to vote on whether to release the report, and it would only take one Republican lawmaker to break ranks and side with Democrats on the panel to change the fate of the report, as the 10-person committee is comprised equally of Democrats and Republicans.

The top Democrat on the committee, Rep. Susan Wild, told reporters that “everybody on the committee now has the report, so they’ve got the opportunity to be reviewing it.”

Johnson, however, told CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union” Sunday that the report is “not finished” and is only in “rough draft form.”

Even as Republicans say the report that members have access to is not final, one source said that the current version includes the thrust of the key findings from the multi-year investigation, and that any further changes would be minor.

Wild predicted that when members do finally meet “I believe there will be a unanimous democratic consensus that [the report] should be released.”

With the impression that Republicans are trying to delay the process, Democrats are beginning to weigh what steps – if any – they can take, according to the sources. But lawmakers want to wait until they meet with their Republican counterparts to get a better read on the situation before assessing potential next steps.

As the fate of the report remains up in the air, both sides are judiciously studying precedent and committee procedures.

Democrats have been reviewing the instances where the Ethics Committee released its findings after an individual left Congress.

“There is plenty of precedence in the Ethics Committee to disclose the report even after a member has resigned,” Wild said.

While Republicans have argued that since Gaetz resigned from Congress when Trump tapped him for attorney general, the investigation into the former congressman is closed and therefore the report should not be released.

“The speaker of the House is not involved in Ethics Committee work, can’t be, shouldn’t be, because the speaker can’t put a thumb on the scale or have anything to do with that. So I have no idea what the contents of this report would be,” Johnson said on Sunday. “What I have said with regard to the report is that it should not come out. And why? Because Matt Gaetz resigned from Congress. He is no longer a member.”

This headline and story have been updated with additional developments.

CNN’s Lauren Fox, Pamela Brown, Jamie Gangel and Steve Contorno have contributed to this report.

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