By ERIC TUCKER Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump has had few defenders in Congress as reliable as Matt Gaetz, who has blasted one prosecutor after another for perceived bias against the president-elect and visibly amplified the Republican’s rallying cry that criminal investigations on him are “witch hunts.”

That kinship paid off on Wednesday when Trump named Gaetz as his pick for attorney general, tapping a conservative loyalist over more established lawyers who had been seen as contenders.

Announcing the selection of Gaetz as attorney general and John Ratcliffe a day earlier as CIA director, Trump emphasized his premium on loyalty, citing both men’s support for him during the Russia investigation as central to their qualifications and signaling his expectations that the leaders in his administration should function not only as a protector of the president but also as an instrument of revenge.

The dynamic matters at a time when Trump, who will take office on the heels of two federal impeachments expected to evaporate soon and a Supreme Court opinion blessing the president’s sole authority over the Justice Department, has threatened to pursue retaliation against perceived adversaries.

“Matt will remove systemic corruption from the DOJ and return the department to its true mission of fighting crime and upholding our Democracy and Constitution. We must have honesty, integrity and transparency at the DOJ,” Trump wrote in a social media post about Gaetz, a Republican from Florida.

Trump’s rhetoric reflects a reverse approach from President Joe Biden, who has repeatedly taken a hands-off approach from the Justice Department even as he faced a special counsel investigation into his handling of classified information and as his son, Hunter, was indicted on charges and weapons charges.

Democrats immediately sounded the alarm, with Sen. Dick Durbin, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, saying Gaetz “would be a disaster” in part because of Trump’s threat to use the Justice Department “to take revenge on enemies his policies”. The president of Common Cause, a good government group, called the selection “shocking” and “a grave threat to the fair and equal application of the law in our nation.” Even several Senate Republicans expressed concern about Gaetz’s selection.

It’s not entirely surprising that Trump would openly praise Gaetz’s role in “defeating the Russia, Russia, Russia hoax and exposing alarming, systemic government corruption and cronyism.” In his first term, Trump fired an FBI director who refused to pledge loyalty to him at a private White House dinner and an attorney general who recused himself from the Justice Department’s investigation into potential ties between Russia and his 2016 presidential campaign .

“I think this selection indicates that President-elect Trump was looking for an attorney general whose views were closely aligned with his on the proper role of the Justice Department,” said former U.S. Attorney Robert Mintz.

Ratcliffe, who served as Trump’s director of national intelligence in the final months of his first term, has become a staunch defender of Trump. He was a member of Trump’s advisory team during his first impeachment in 2019 and has carefully declassified several witnesses about the Russia probe, including an FBI agent who led the investigation and exchanged anti-Trump text messages with a colleague.

That work was credited by Trump in his selection announcement, as he praised Ratcliffe for “exposing false Russian collusion” and “being a warrior for truth and honesty with the American public.”

Gaetz would have been the first attorney general in 20 years with no prior Justice Department experience, and in recent years was embroiled in a federal sex-trafficking investigation that ended without criminal charges.

Hours before the announcement, Gaetz said in a social media post that there needed to be a “full press against this government WITH GUNS that has been turned against our people.” He added, “And if that means ABOLISHING every one of the three letter agencies, from the FBI to the ATF, I’m ready to go!” If confirmed as attorney general, he would oversee both the FBI and ATF.

Furthering the theme of retribution, billionaire Trump supporter Elon Musk weighed in on Gaetz’s nomination with a post that read: “The hammer of justice is coming.”

Gaetz has used the congressional seat he first won in 2016 to criticize the Justice Department, repeatedly denouncing what he — and Trump — say is a criminal justice system biased against conservatives. He criticized law enforcement officials he perceived as either openly anti-Trump or ineffective in protecting Trump’s interests.

When Robert Mueller visited Capitol Hill to discuss the findings of the Russia probe, Gaetz blasted the prosecutor for leading a team the congressman said was “so biased.” The Trump Justice Department appointed a special counsel, John Durham, to look into errors in the Russia probe, but Gaetz also chided Durham for not revealing enough damaging information about the FBI’s investigation into Trump.

“For people like the (committee) chairman who put their trust in you, I think you let them down. I think you have let the country down. You are one of the barriers to the real accountability we need,” Gaetz told Durham.

He has directed his anger squarely at FBI Director Christopher Wray, telling him last year that the FBI applicants in Florida “deserve better than you,” and at current Attorney General Merrick Garland, who appointed special counsel Jack Smith to investigate Trump’s accumulation of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida and his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

Both investigations ended in indictments that are expected to end before Trump takes office. And Smith, too, is likely to be gone by the time Gaetz arrives, and a new FBI director is also expected to be named, given Trump’s lingering displeasure with Wray, his own appointee.

“None of us can predict exactly what’s going to happen there,” said Ryan Fayhee, a former Justice Department national security attorney.

He added: “I think it’s more of a problem for the department to continue to be independent and to rest largely on the broad shoulders of career prosecutors and agents who have held themselves to the highest standards.”