President-elect Donald Trump has named Rep. Matt Gaetz, a Florida Republican, to be his attorney general, putting the controversial conservative in charge of the Justice Department as he tries to bring the agency under more direct presidential control.

In a surprise announcement, President-elect Donald Trump said he intends to nominate Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) to be his attorney general despite his ongoing problems with the House ethics committee. “Matt is a deeply gifted and tenacious attorney,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, his social media platform.

President-elect Donald Trump says he will nominate Republican Matt Gaetz of Florida to serve as his attorney general, putting a loyalist in the role of the nation’s top prosecutor.

In a post on Truth Social, Trump said that Gaetz would "root out the systemic corruption" at the Department of Justice.

President-elect Donald J. Trump has made clear his view of the Justice Department’s importance and has complained that his past attorneys general fell far short of his expectations.

President-elect Donald Trump named Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida as his nominee for secretary of state on Wednesday, setting up a onetime critic who evolved into one of the president-elect's fiercest defenders to become the nation's top diplomat.