My latest Daily Telegraph column:

The system worked. Donald Trump and his loyalists huffed and puffed about breaking the US Senate’s role as a check on bad appointments by the president, but in the end Matt Gaetz withdrew his name with shocking speed from consideration to be Trump’s attorney general.

This makes it less likely that Trump will force a showdown with Senate Republicans over his harebrained scheme to have the Senate declare itself in recess so that he can fill his Cabinet with temporary appointees. That avoids starting his term with an immediate constitutional crisis. Yet, it may also be good news for Trump, and perhaps even for Gaetz himself.