Speaker Johnson Endorses Matt Gaetz For AG, Says He Will ‘Reform’ DOJ

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) is fully endorsing Matt Gaetz for attorney general and is urging his senate colleagues to confirm his appointment in January.

“The reason that Matt Gaetz is such an exciting pick to so many people is because he will go in and reform the Department of Justice. It desperately needs it,” Johnson said during a Sunday morning appearance on Fox News. 

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“Look, he and I sat on the Judiciary Committee together for almost seven years before I became Speaker of the House. And we heard the evidence. We saw the evidence of lawfare. We saw how the Department of Justice had been used for political purposes. How they targeted Catholics in some examples, and parents at school boards, and pro-life Americans this is not what our system of justice was built to do,” he continued. “And Matt Gaetz will go in there and shake it up, and I think most of the American people understand that’s an important function.”

Johnson further defended Gaetz’s nomination while speaking with CNN’s Jake Tapper in a separate Sunday morning interview.

“This is what I’ll say about the nominees that the president has put forward, is that they are persons who will shake up the status quo. And I think what the American people have believed and what they’ve delivered with the mandate in this election is the demand that we shake up the status quo,” he said. “It’s not working for the American people. So use the term in the opening about how these are disruptors. They are. I think that’s by design.”

The speaker further noted that Trump has the right to appoint his own cabinet members and to fill key positions with loyalists who will carry out his agenda. “And the people that are on this list will do that. They will go into the agencies that they’re being asked to lead and they will reform them. These agencies need reform and I think the vast majority of the American people understand that,” Johnson added.

“You can’t have status quo appointments in a moment like this.”

Trump’s cabinet appointments — especially Robert F. Kennedy Jr. For Health and Human Services secretary, Pete Hegseth for defense secretary and Matt Gaetz for attorney general — have led to a week of angry reactions from left-wing lawmakers and pundits on CNN and MSNBC.

While Gaetz has received a number of key Senate endorsements, there are a handful of members who are holding out both publicly and privately. Senators Susan Collins (R-ME) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) have publicly balked at the idea of confirming Gaetz, while multiple anonymous Senate sources told Fox News that he has “no shot.”

Gaetz’s nomination has been overwhelmingly supported by the president-elect’s base, however.

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