It’s unclear which of the countless allegations swirling around Matt Gaetz ultimately ended the former Florida congressman’s short-lived bid to become Donald Trump’s attorney general. The 42-year-old, whom Trump nominated to become the nation’s top law enforcement official, has been repeatedly accused sex trafficking, having sex with a minor girl, taking illegal drugs, paying women to have sex with him, accepting bribes and misusing campaign funds.

In the hours before he was removed as AG on November 21, it emerged that the same woman who had alleged that Gaetz had sex with her when she was a minor had testified before the ethics committee of the House regarding another sexual relationship, also when she was a minor, which involved another adult woman.

Gaetz denies all allegations that have been made against him and has not been charged with any crimes, but he resigned from the House on November 13 after Trump nominated him as the next attorney general and before the ethics committee of the House cannot publish the results of the election. an investigation into his alleged misconduct. His congressional colleagues have already raised concerns about his conduct and attitude towards women.

After visiting the Senate with Vice President-elect JD Vance to promote his candidacy on November 20 and meeting with several Republican senators, Gaetz announced his decision to step down. “It is clear that my confirmation was unfairly becoming a distraction from the critical work of the Trump/Vance transition,” he wrote the next day on social media – ironic given that the far-right congressman has built a national profile by creating distractions and drawing attention to itself. (It may well be that Gaetz made enemies within the Republican Party when he led the movement to block Kevin McCarthy’s bid for president last year and subsequently oust him .)

Trump apparently came up with the idea of ​​appointing Gaetz as AG on a whim, during a flight. Unlike other contenders for the job, who bored him with their “vaunted legal theories and constitutional bullshit,” a Trump adviser said. The rampart. “Gaetz was the only one saying, ‘Yeah, I’m going to go out there and start cutting off fucking heads.'”

It’s possible that Gaetz’s nomination was never serious. There has been speculation that Trump deliberately fielded a scandalous nominee — knowing full well that he was unlikely to be confirmed by the Senate — to distract from the controversy of his other troubling nominees. He also appointed blatantly unqualified Fox News host Pete Hegseth as secretary of defense, for example, and former Hawaii congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, known for parroting pro-Kremlin talking points, as deputy. director of national intelligence. Then there’s anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whom Trump chose to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.

Still, Trump’s choice of Gaetz shouldn’t have come as a shock. He made it clear throughout the election campaign that he was determined to “take revenge” and root out the “enemy within” when he returned to power. He believes he was unfairly constrained during his previous term by left-wing institutions and the “deep state,” and he has no intention of making the same mistake again. This time, he wants a team around him who will be loyal to him above all. He has never forgiven Mike Pence for putting his loyalty to the country ahead of his loyalty to him by certifying Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election. Gaetz’s promise to “start cutting off heads” appears to be more the style of government that Trump has in mind for his second term.

None of the lurid allegations against Gaetz would have been considered disqualifying by Trump. The new president was convicted of sexual assault. He bragged about groping women and was convicted on 34 counts of falsifying business records to conceal secret payments to a porn star. He was also expected to face a federal trial for trying to overturn the results of the last election and for mishandling classified documents if he had not regained control of the Justice Department in this election. If none of these behaviors stopped Trump from winning the presidency – when tens of millions of Americans voted for him anyway – why should we expect those who serve under him to be held to higher standards?

The only glimmer of optimism in this sordid saga is that there still appears to be a limit to how much Senate Republicans will tolerate. Despite Trump’s dominance of the party, considering Matt Gaetz for attorney general appears to have proven to be a step too far. That doesn’t mean they won’t confirm other scandalous appointments in the coming weeks and align with his legislative agenda in the years to come. But it shows that for now, at least, the party’s loyalty to Donald Trump is not absolute.

(See also: Kevin Roberts’ fire-breathing American right)