By Steve Benen Donald Trump’s transition process was supposed to be relatively smooth. A recent Semafor report , for example, noted that the president-elect’s transition was “ designed to be ‘orderly’ by advisers who have more eager congressional Republican allies this time around.” But, the report added, the “consistent chaos and confusion that defined Trump’s first administration are already descending on Washington.
” By this point, the list is probably familiar. More than seven weeks after Election Day, the incoming GOP president has been plagued by personnel flops , legislative failures , diplomatic debacles and a bizarre preoccupation with a “mandate” that quantitatively does not exist . By any fair measure, Team Trump is struggling with the most shambolic transition process in modern history, as the Republican steps on one rake after another .
There’s one specific fiasco, however, that warrants special attention. David Firestone’s latest column in The New York Times rang true: There is so much repellently sleazy behavior documented in the House Ethics Committee report about Matt Gaetz that a reader has to stop every few pages to look away and focus on what still seems astounding: This is the man that Donald Trump wanted to be the attorney general of the United States, the highest-ranking law enforcement official in the land, the leader of the Department of Justice. The House Ethics Committee — in a report released to the public the day before.
