For “The View” co-host Sunny Hostin, it had all the sincerity of a hostage video.
But for the legal team charged with keeping ABC’s morning show of madhouse chatter out of the courthouse, the “legal note” Hostin was forced to read during Tuesday’s show was necessary after Hostin smeared President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for attorney general with charges of sexually abusing children.
And went way too far.
As the lefty website Mediaite noted, the moment came during a discussion of Trump’s cabinet picks, including former Rep. Matt Gaetz, the Florida flamethrower Trump has chosen to head the Justice Department.
Goldberg “abruptly” stated that Hostin had a notice from the show’s legal department to read on the air. Given how painful it appeared for Hostin to do so, it was clear she would have preferred to be doing just about anything else (like launching another racist rant against Trump voters).
Check it out here:
“Matt Gaetz has long denied all allegations, calling the claims, quote, ‘invented,’ and saying in a statement to ABC News that ‘this false smear following a three-year criminal investigation should be viewed with great skepticism,’” Hostin read. “The DOJ investigation was closed with no charges being brought.”
Gaetz, who has enemies on both sides of the aisle in Washington (see, for example, his long-running feud with former Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy) — as well as in President Joe Biden’s Justice Department — has been the subject of accusations of sexual misconduct for years.
As Hostin noted — however unwillingly — the accusations have not been substantiated. But that isn’t stopping many on the left and the right (National Review’s Jeffrey Behar, for instance) from using them as ammunition to attack the Gaetz nomination.
Pronouncing Gaetz guilty of statutory rape, as Hostin effectively did on Tuesday, is a bridge too far, even for “The View,” or at least the show’s attorneys.
Hostin, according to her ABC biography, is a former federal prosecutor of child sex cases. That means she should know better — and that makes it much, much worse.
Conservative commentator Colin Rugg posted video of Hostin’s comments that led the legal department’s note:
There’s no question that the Gaetz nomination has gone off like a bomb in Washington, and there are reasons to be skeptical about his qualifications to lead the Justice Department beyond slimy sexual innuendo. (His own congressional biography, for instance, contains barely a mention of actually practicing law.)
But there’s also no question that Trump knew Gaetz’s strengths and weaknesses before announcing the nomination — and likely the main strength was Gaetz’s evident willingness to take on the Washington power structure.
The DOJ under Attorney General Merrick Garland has proven repeatedly over the Biden administration that it has devolved into a nakedly political outfit. It’s been dedicated to protecting its favorites (first son Hunter Biden, say) — and attacking perceived enemies — such as Donald Trump, parents concerned about their children’s education, and pro-lifers.
Compared to a gnawing rodent like Garland — a one-time Supreme Court nominee! — Gaetz, for all his flaws, would look like a combination of F. Lee Bailey and Atticus Finch.
Democrats and their allies in the media understand that sex sells, and sexual charges are apparently the front they’ve chosen to fight on when it comes to the Gaetz nomination. It’s the likely ground Republicans in the Senate who oppose Gaetz might choose to use as their pretext for voting against him.
But as Hostin’s legal note shows, that might be shakier ground than they want to pretend.
