I'm not talking about people around him - I'm talking about him. Your post said "Trump is a smart motherfucker" and purported to describe making Gaetz a "sacrificial lamb" as an intentional brilliant strategy by Trump. Not by the people around him.
I know there are smart people around Trump. Is it possible that someone manipulated him Trump into throwing out Gaetz knowing what would happen? Maybe, though I think there are lots of other possible explanations too. What I am very confident did not happen is that Trump himself though up the Gaetz nomination as some brilliant strategic move that would both help his other nominees (which, personally, I don't think will happen anyway) while bailing Gaetz out of his predicament with the House investigation (which didn't really happen anyway, because Gaetz is still out of Congress and personally disgraced).