Government

Make Matt Gaetz Plead The Fifth At His Confirmation Hearing

The meme factories are trembling in anticipation.

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(Photo by Samuel Corum/Getty Images)

Donald Trump has announced that he’s going to nominate Matt Gaetz to serve as the attorney general of the United States.

I don’t know whether Trump is doing this to own the libs or to confirm that he’s a moron. Either way, the Democrats’ strategy in response to this nomination is obvious: Make Matt Gaetz repeatedly plead the Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate himself during the confirmation hearing.

This idea is remarkably easy to execute. The House Ethics Committee is investigating Gaetz for a host of illegal conduct, “including sexual misconduct, illicit drug use, accepting improper gifts and obstructing investigations into his conduct.” Any Democrat could thus spend the time permitted for examination to ask about precisely those things.
Questions on these topics are undeniably relevant: Surely a person who has committed criminal misconduct should not be confirmed as attorney general.

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And, for Gaetz, the questions are unanswerable: Gaetz could not answer without putting himself at risk in a possible later criminal case.
This examination would go viral in a heartbeat:
 
“Mr. Gaetz, have you ever engaged in sexual misconduct?”

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“On the advice of counsel, I invoke my right under the Fifth Amendment of the United States Constitution not to incriminate myself.”
 
Don’t go light on this stuff. Explore it in detail. Learn precisely what sexual misconduct is being investigated, and ask about a dozen questions on that topic.
 
Once the questioner was done with sexual misconduct, the questioner should ask a similar series of questions about whether Gaetz has used illicit drugs. And accepted improper gifts. And obstructed investigations into his conduct.
 
Those questions would surely fill the five minutes or so for questioning that is typically allotted to members of Congress in confirmation hearings.
 
The five minutes of questions and answers would both make the nightly news and explode across the internet. The questions would (properly) cause Gaetz not to be confirmed, and they would embarrass Trump for even having considered this preposterous idea.
 

Liberals shouldn’t simply scream about what an insane nomination this is. They should wait for the confirmation hearing and then slowly and methodically destroy Gaetz as a nominee.

Mark Herrmann spent 17 years as a partner at a leading international law firm and later oversaw litigation, compliance and employment matters at a large international company. He is the author of The Curmudgeon’s Guide to Practicing Law and Drug and Device Product Liability Litigation Strategy (affiliate links). You can reach him by email at [email protected].

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