Gaetz was not the only troubling Cabinet pick

President-elect Donald Trump's intention to make the disreputable Matt Gaetz his attorney general was reckless and irresponsible from the start. Gaetz withdrew Thursday, just eight days after Trump selected the firebrand former House member as one of his first Cabinet choices, hoping to install a serial killer of his perceived enemies as the nation's top law enforcement officer.

Gaetz's demise came a day after meetings with GOP senators, and despite intense lobbying by Trump. But the senators were not enamored of voting for the political equivalent of Hannibal Lecter. Amid new reports of his sex trafficking and supplying drugs to underaged girls and Senate demands to see a confidential House Ethics Committee report, Gaetz realized it was time to move on.

Selecting an attorney general is always difficult. The AG must be loyal to the president and implement an administration's policies and priorities. But foremost, the AG must act in accordance with the law and be faithful to the U.S. Constitution. Trump would have been wise to seek a candidate with impeccable integrity, someone with experience as a federal judge, U.S. attorney or top Department of Justice official who understands the scope and responsibility of the job.   His quick rebound pick, Pam Bondi, the former Florida attorney general who received a $25,000 donation from Trump in 2013 as her office was deciding whether to take legal action against Trump University, isn't that person.

Gaetz was a self-inflicted setback. It was well known that he had been the focus of a federal investigation and a House Ethics Committee probe. But Trump has continued making some bad choices, likely because his transition team is not following the usual strict vetting process that unearths problems like the ones besetting defense secretary nominee Pete Hegseth.

The Fox News weekend host is rebutting allegations that he date-raped a woman in 2017, claiming it was consensual though he paid her a sum of money and required a nondisclosure statement. Trump's transition team is now reportedly angry that it was blindsided both by the incident and that Hegseth actually had a copy of the damning police report. The episode alone should be dicey, if not disqualifying, for someone tasked with eliminating sexual violence from the military. Besides that character hurdle, he also has no credentials to run an organization of two million people.

The pushback on Gaetz from the new Senate Republican majority hopefully signals some independence by a separate branch of government required to give "advice and consent" on the president's Cabinet. Then again, Gaetz is about as low a bar as you can find. Hegseth is not far behind. And, as we noted in an earlier editorial, Tulsi Gabbard is an apologist for Russian dictator Vladimir Putin. If she is confirmed as director of national intelligence, our allies are warning they will not share information with us. That's not good for national security. Gabbard's nomination should also get the strictest scrutiny from the Senate.