If Trump were a little less reckless, vindictive, and vain, our republic would be in even more trouble. But Trump is Trump. And some of his bizarre nominees to high office seem calculated less to achieve his own goals than to outrage liberals. However, even in today’s Trumpified Republican Senate, there are limits.
First, Matt Gaetz went down as Trump’s nominee for attorney general. JD Vance was hastily dispatched to line up Senate support. Vance has his own deficiencies, but he can count. Gaetz abruptly withdrew, saying that he had become a distraction. (Funny, that never stopped him before.)
Yesterday, Chad Chronister, Trump’s nominee for chief of the Drug Enforcement Administration, an obscure Florida sheriff, withdrew after less than a day, after complaints by Republicans that he had arrested a local preacher for defying COVID lockdown orders. Given Trump’s obsession with reducing fentanyl smuggling, you might think he’d want someone competent at DEA.
Why Chronister? His father-in-law, Edward J. DeBartolo Jr., former San Francisco 49ers owner, whom Trump pardoned in 2020 for a gambling payoff conviction, has been a major Trump donor.
