A majority of Senate Republicans doubt Matt Gaetz will be confirmed as attorney general, sources say

More than half of Senate Republicans, including some in senior positions, say privately they don’t see a path for former Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., to be confirmed as attorney general and would not support him to lead the Department of Justice, according to several people who spoke to NBC News on condition of anonymity.

While Gaetz’s ability to be confirmed appears on the rocks among Senate Republicans, President-elect Donald Trump’s team remains confident that he will ultimately be confirmed, even if it is after an ugly battle.

NBC News spoke with more than 15 additional Republican sources who agreed that there are not enough votes in the Senate to confirm Gaetz, and some estimated that closer to 30 Republicans consider him unqualified.

Gaetz and Trump lawyer Todd Blanche are in full swing trying to fill the Justice Department, according to sources familiar with the planning. If confirmed, Blanche would serve in the powerful No. 2 position in the Justice Department, overseeing all U.S. attorneys’ offices nationwide.

“President Trump and his team are focused on and confident in the confirmation of AG-designate Gaetz,” a person familiar with Trump’s thinking told NBC News.

Vice President-elect JD Vance and his aides have also been working the phones over the past two days to get a read on where senators stand on Gaetz.

Trump announced that he selected Gaetz for the role of attorney general on Wednesday, writes in a post about Truth Social“Few issues in America are more important than ending the partisan weaponization of our justice system. Matt will end gun-toting government, protect our borders, dismantle criminal organizations, and restore Americans’ badly broken faith and trust in the Department of Justice.”

When the president-elect initially announced his choice, many Republicans — except for House Speaker Mike Johnson, who got a heads-up from Trump — were in complete shock.

In his few terms in the House, Gaetz has often been embroiled in controversy.

He was investigated by the Ministry of Justice in a case involving the alleged sex trafficking of a 17-year-old girl, although the former congressman, who resigned his post shortly after being elected attorney general, has always denied the allegations and has never been criminally charged.

However, on Thursday, a lawyer for the 17-year-old girl wrote in a post on X, saying: “She was a high school student and there were witnesses” when the alleged incident took place.

The attorney, John Clune, also called for the release of a House Ethics Committee report detailing the committee’s investigation into Gaetz, which has been ongoing for several years.

“If they want to send (the report), that would be fine,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R.S.C., a staunch Trump ally, told reporters at the Capitol this week, though he added in a statement from his office, that he planned to vote to confirm each of the president-elect’s judicial nominees.

On Friday, Johnson said he would “strongly request” that the report not be made public, although several Republican senators have said they would like to see the report as part of their deliberation process ahead of a confirmation vote.

“I don’t want there to be any limitation at all on what the Senate can consider,” Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, told reporters at the Capitol this week when asked if the Senate Judiciary Committee should be privy to the report .

“We need to have a full review of the nominees, not only so we know the nominee is qualified, but also to protect the president,” he added.

“I think when you’re at this point, especially given his abrupt departure from Congress right before that report came out, given the job he’s being appointed to, given that the FBI is going to do a background check anyway, can’t imagine the committee won’t want to see it,” said Sen. Kevin Cramer, RN.D. “So at least those of us who want a vote at some point, starting with the Judiciary Committee, should see it. And I can’t imagine they won’t.”

The House Ethics Committee was expected to meet Friday to decide whether to release its report on Gaetz, which it has been investigating on and off since 2021, according to a source with direct knowledge. The panel abruptly canceled the meeting, which House Ethics Committee Chairman Michael Guest, R-Miss., insisted was only an adjournment.

Later Friday, an attorney for another woman interviewed by the House Ethics Committee said his client “testified to the House Ethics Committee that she saw Rep. Gaetz have sex with a minor at a party in Orlando in 2017.”

Several Republicans shared that Gaetz, who was being investigated by the agency he could now oversee, has a “steep hill” to climb toward Senate confirmation.

“I would guess that if we had a vote in the Senate today, it could be more than that,” Cramer said Thursday when pressed on whether 10 Senate Republicans could vote to oppose Gaetz — as the Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal suggested to NBC News earlier that day. “I’m worried that he can’t get across the finish line and we’re going to spend a lot of political capital … on something that even if they got it done, you’d have to wonder if it was worth it.”

Republicans who oppose Gaetz now may still ultimately vote to confirm him when the time comes, especially if pressure from Trump mounts.

If Republicans end up with 53 seats in the upper chamber after the recount in Pennsylvania’s Senate race is completed, Gaetz will not be confirmed if more than three GOP senators vote against him (Vance could break a tie for Senate president).

Republicans like Cramer have also warned Trump not to block someone like Gaetz in a recess appointment, which would bypass the Senate confirmation process.

Shortly after he was expected to win the presidential election, Trump wrote a post on Truth Social urging Republicans to run for the next Senate majority leader to allow him to use recess appointments to quickly confirm a cabinet.

This style of nomination would bypass the normal appointment process and leave the Senate entirely out of the equation by allowing Trump to appoint members of his cabinet while both chambers of Congress are in recess periods lasting days or weeks.

The House and Senate currently gave pro forma sessions while in recess to prevent the president from taking such steps to appoint cabinet members.

Since the Truth Social post, Trump has not asked for any specific Cabinet pick, including Gaetz, to be confirmed via a recess appointment.

“If the obstructionists are the other party, and you have the votes to confirm somebody, then I think you could make an ethical decision to give that option, the constitutional option,” Cramer said. “On the other hand, if the opposition prevents you from doing it with your own party, I think there are a few risks. You could do that, but you’d have a very weak cabinet secretary.”