CNN reported in late January 2024 that the GOP-led House Ethics Committee investigating alleged sex crimes involving Rep. Matt Gaetz has contacted the woman whom “the congressman allegedly had sexual relations with when she was a 17-year-old minor.”
CNN, quoting a source familiar with the committee’s work, said the committee has “reached out to the Justice Department requesting materials from its investigation into Gaetz, which included allegations of lobbying violations, sex-trafficking and possible obstruction of justice.”
https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/24/politics/house-ethics-matt-gaetz/index.html
An investigation into Gaetz concluded in 2023 with no charges filed.
CNN reported that Gaetz, who led the charge to remove Kevin McCarthy as House Speaker in 2023, has “privately” blamed McCarthy for renewing the investigation.
McCarthy said that Gaetz had worked to oust McCarthy because of the ethics investigation.
“He would throw his country away to try to protect himself for what would come out as the truth,” McCarthy said.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/24/politics/house-ethics-matt-gaetz/index.html
Gaetz appears to be a crude, ignorant, obnoxious, lawless, racist, whose success, such as it is, is a product of his wealth and white privilege. He prefers his girlfriends to be girls (no older than 17) and his politics to be fascist. He cares nothing about the country or its history or its laws.
He is a legislative terrorist.
But in reality, Gaetz is … much worse.
Gaetz demanded that Speaker McCarthy do what he wanted him to do or he would remove McCarthy as speaker.
This is what Gaetz told McCarthy:
“No continuing resolutions — individual spending bills or bust. Votes on balanced budgets and term limits. Subpoenas for Hunter Biden and the members of the Biden family who’ve been grifting off of this country. And the impeachment for Joe Biden that he so richly deserves,” Gaetz said. “Do these things or face a motion to vacate the chair.”
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/gaetz-threatens-mccarthy-ouster-compliance
Gaetz’s demands also include having him declared president of the United States; a pardon to anyone ever committed of a crime who voted for Donald Trump; invalidating the Constitution (except for the Second Amendment, of course); giving Alaska back to the Russians; outlawing public schools; and legalizing statutory rape.
The last paragraph isn’t entirely truthful.
Gaetz, a critic of affirmative action, is the product of white privilege, where his wealthy father and grandfather, both influential politicians, gave him the keys to the family business without Matt having to, you know, work for it. He doesn’t mention in his official biography that either his father or his grandfather were politicians. He does mention his wife, the daughter of a wealthy GOP donor.
Gaetz was elected to Congress in 2017.
In January 2018, Gaetz invited alt-right Holocaust denier Charles C. Johnson to Donald Trump’s State of the Union Address. Johnson raised money for the neo-Nazi website The Daily Stormer. Gaetz said that Johnson was neither a Holocaust nor a white supremacist.
At least according to Gaetz, who is a white supremacist.
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/01/31/gaetz-florida-right-wing-troll-380577
Gaetz then hired as a speechwriter Darren Beattie, who had been fired from the Trump White House for attending a white nationalist conference.
https://edition.cnn.com/2019/04/19/politics/darren-beattie-matt-gaetz/index.html
To summarize, Gaetz hired people too racist to work for Donald Trump.
Think about that.
Gaetz attended political rallies for the Proud Boys in in 2018 and 2019.
When the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Gaetz tweeted: “How many of the women rallying against overturning Roe are over-educated, under-loved millennials who sadly return from protests to a lonely microwave dinner with their cats, and no bumble matches.”
An article in Vanity Fair magazine responded to Gaetz with the headline, “Matt Gaetz Accidentally Reminds People He’s a Loser Who Allegedly Has to Pay Women for Sex.”
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/05/matt-gaetz-roe-v-wade-abortion-tweet
The article began as follows:
“This tweet was written by a guy currently under investigation for allegedly paying women for sex and, separately, sleeping with a minor and transporting her across state lines. Gaetz, of course, denies all this, in addition to a report from The New York Times that cited receipts showing that he and his ‘wingman’ Jeff Greenberg, made online payments to one woman, Greenberg paid a second woman, and both women told their friends the money was for sex with the men.”
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/05/matt-gaetz-roe-v-wade-abortion-tweet
In 2021, Greenberg pled guilty to six charges, including sex trafficking of a minor, identity theft, stalking, wire fraud and conspiracy to bribe a public official. He was sentenced in December to 11 years in prison.
In addition, Vanity Fair article pointed out that “Gaetz was criticizing lonely women when he was so repulsive to the opposite sex that he needed to—allegedly!—pay women to sleep with him and/or prey on 17-year-olds.”
The article published this tweet:
“Matt Gaetz thinks most women are over-educated because he doesn’t like women old enough to have a high school diploma.”
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/05/matt-gaetz-roe-v-wade-abortion-tweet
In fairness, the Department of Justice, the Washington Post reported, did not charge Gaetz because the witnesses had credibility issues.
The New Republic reported that three people testified under oath that Gaetz sought a preemptive pardon from then-president Trump if he were convicted of charges related to the Justice Department investigation that the Florida congressman had violated federal sex-trafficking laws.
https://newrepublic.com/post/170307/matt-gaetz-confronted-video-receipts-sought-pardon-trump
Gaetz reputedly told people he was best friends with Trump.
Best friends.
That’s what Gaetz told his girlfriend, who had picked up from high school marching band practice, so she could be there when Trump acknowledged him during a campaign event in Florida in October 2020, a month before the election.
Imagine the excitement!
But Trump called Gaetz “Rick Gates,” the name of a former White House aide who was convicted after pleading guilty to crimes related to Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Trump repeatedly refer to Gaetz as Rick Gates.
How humiliating for Gaetz.
I think this is why Gaetz’s high school girlfriend broke up with him and agreed to testify against him, don’t you?
Gaetz forgave Trump and worked tirelessly – one might say criminally – to overturn the presidential election. He has been described as one “of the loudest voices spreading former President Donald Trump‘s lies about election fraud in the aftermath of the 2020 election.”
https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/trump-pro-insurrection-allies-seats-congress-rcna99781
Millions of Americans watched insurrectionists storm the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, to violently overturn the election. Dozens of police others were injured.
But, no, Gaetz said, this is not what really happened.
Don’t believe your eyes; believe him.
Matt Gaetz said he’s “proud” of the GOP’s work on January 6, 2021. He described the insurrectionists who tried to stop the transfer of power as “patriotic Americans.” He also claimed falsely they had “no intent of breaking the law or doing violence.”
What do Gaetz’s old friends think of him?
He doesn’t seem to have any old friends.
More than five hundred William and Mary Law School alumni signed a petition urging that Gaetz – who received his law degree from William and Mary — resign from the House of Representatives because of his role in trying to overthrow the Presidential Election of 2020 and because he was an embarrassment to them and to all law school grads.
Thirty-four members who signed the petition were part of Gaetz’s law school class.
Salon interviewed dozens of his classmates who remembered Gaetz fondly as being scum – not just regular scum but the scum that scum wipes off the bottom of its feet when it goes inside.
Those interviewed released emails from Gaetz’s college days that he shared that included an invitation to a Super Bowl party that also promised gambling and strippers.
“His invitation included specific requests: chips, one-dollar bills, and strippers,” the story reported \ while quoting Gaetz writing, “I may ask you to bring some incidentals (napkins, cups, chips, strippers, ext.).P.S – After entering all of your email addresses it is painfully obvious that I don’t know enough girls – so bring some.”
One former classmate said that Gaetz was “embarrassing to the institution.” Another referred directly to Gaetz’s efforts to overthrow the democratically elected presidency of Joe Biden. “In doing that he’s undermining our system of government and the rule of law. Obviously, it’s not great to have Matt be among our alumni,” the classmate said. “It’s not really the person you want to point to as a role model.”
