Update (1905ET) According to House Speaker Mike Johnson, Gaetz has resigned effective immediately.
“I think out of deference to us, he issued his resignation letter effective immediately, of Congress,” said Johnson.
“That caught us by surprise a little bit. But I asked him what the reasoning was, and he said, well, you can’t have too many absences. So under Florida State law, there’s about an eight week period to, select and fill in a vacancy. And so by doing so today, that allows me I’ve already placed a call to Governor DeSantis in Florida and said, let’s start the clock. He’s in Italy at the moment. And so we’re going to talk first thing in the morning about this. And if we start the clock now, if you do the math, we may be able to fill that seat as early as January 3rd when we take the new oath of office for the new Congress.” (h/t @ChadPergram)
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The hits to the establishment keep on coming – as President-elect Donald Trump has nominated Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) for Attorney General of the United States.