Donald Trump’s Extremist Nominations are a Dangerous Affront to Our Values

WASHINGTON – After President-elect Trump announced his intention to nominate Rep. Matt Gaetz as Attorney General, Fmr. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence, and Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense, Halie Soifer, CEO of the Jewish Democratic Council of America, released the following statement:

“In the past day, Donald Trump has nominated an accused sexual predator as attorney general, a Putin sympathizer to lead our intelligence community, and a Fox News weekend host to lead the strongest military in the world. He’s chosen sycophants as opposed to qualified officials, and we condemn these nominations as a dangerous affront to our values. 

“When Donald Trump’s sole criteria for his cabinet nominations is loyalty to him rather than to the Constitution and rule of law, it’s no surprise that we wind up with nominees unbefitting of the offices they seek to lead. 71% of Jewish Americans rejected Trump at the ballot box because we knew of the threat he poses to our democratic institutions.

“To be clear, there’s nothing pro-Israel about choosing an Assad apologist to lead our intelligence community. There’s nothing in our Jewish values that justifies tasking an alleged sex trafficker who also traffics in antisemitic conspiracy theories with overseeing our system of justice. We encourage the Senate to reject these nominations given the dangerous threat they pose to U.S. national security interests and American values.”

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