Michael Guest Is About To Learn What A Tar Baby Is
Matt Gaetz has made a lot of enemies in Congress— Republicans, not Democrats. But he’s also spent his time making himself into a MAGA superstar. The House GOP establishment wants to take him on. They must be crazy. It will be very hard for them to lay a finger on them— and he will smear shit all over them. He’s studied Trump’s tactics well— and, like Trump, he’s the spoiled brat of a wealthy, entitled family. His colleagues in DC hate that in him. They see him as “a chaos agent, whose political convictions revolve around, largely, the promotion of Matt Gaetz. His role in ousting Speaker Kevin McCarthy— a feat treated by Trump fans as akin to Roger Bannister breaking the four-minute mile— weakened the party and left them in a state of disorder from which they have not recovered. His alleged ethical transgressions aren’t signs that he has the right enemies; if true, they’re illustrations of serious moral lapses. They’d be more than fine if he just went away… But as Gaetz sees it, he’s closer to the id of the party than many of his fellow congressional Republicans. And if you were to be with him on the trail in New Hampshire, you’d be hard pressed to disagree. One woman who waited in a line to get a photo with the lawmaker put her 91-year-old father on the phone to talk with him. She was so elated, her hands were shaking. She struggled to hit the right button to hang up the line… Several attendees at the event said they could very easily see themselves voting for Gaetz if he were to run for president. He was, they argued, Trumpism personified; or, at least, attitudinally and temperamentally as close to the personification as someone not named Trump could be.”
Yesterday, Will Steakin reported that the House ethics committee is closing in on him and has been contacting “multiple new witnesses” including the then-17 year old he paid for sex. Gaetz already been attacking committee chair Michael Guest (R-MS) for a couple of months. The other members of the committee:
Mark DeSaulnier (D-CA)
Veronica Escobar (D-TX)
Michelle Fischbach (R-MN)
Andrew Garbarino (R-NY)
Glenn Ivey (D-MD)
David Joyce (R-OH)
Deborah Ross (D-NC)
John Rutherford (R-FL)
Susan Wild (D-PA)
In recent days, the Republican-led House Ethics Committee has reached out to multiple new witnesses, expanding its contact with individuals who have ties to the initial Justice Department investigation into Gaetz, said sources, who told ABC News that committee investigators have begun conducting interviews.
The House probe into Gaetz's conduct was reopened last July after the Ethics Committee initially deferred its investigation at the request of the Justice Department, which conducted its own years-long probe that concluded without charging Gaetz in 2023.
Responding to the new developments, Gaetz told ABC News in a statement, "It's great to see the Ethics Committee has interests beyond trading stocks. They seem to be quite the unusual whales."
Members of the Ethics Committee declined to comment to ABC News regarding the probe.
Fritz Scheller, the attorney for Joel Greenberg, a one-time close friend of Gaetz who was sentenced to 11 years in prison after pleading guilty to federal charges ranging from wire fraud to sex trafficking a minor, told ABC News that he would not "confirm or deny" being in contact with the House Ethics Committee.
Gaetz, when the probe was reopened in July, blasted the Ethic Committee for "trying to weaponize their process."
"I was cleared by the Department of Justice and the FBI, who looked into my life for years," Gaetz said at the time. [That’s a deliberate lie; he wasn’t cleared; he wasn’t charged.] "Now, I believe that the House Ethics Committee is trying to weaponize their process against me because every once in a while up here I'm a rabble-rouser and I don't go along to get along. And right now, I'm forcing this body to have deal with our debt and our spending."
"I think all the days in Congress, there are probably in the seven years I've been in Congress, there have only been tens of days when I haven't been under one form of ethics investigation or another," Gaetz said. "I've never been found to have violated any ethical laws. I won't be found to have violated them in this matter either."
The news comes weeks after Rep. George Santos was voted out of Congress following the release of a scathing report by the Ethics Committee that alleged the New York congressman used the prestige of political office to defraud victims of tens of thousands of dollars.
Since the Santos probe concluded, the Ethics Committee has refocused its efforts toward Gaetz, sources said, with the committee expecting to schedule more interviews and receive documents related to the probe in the coming weeks.
Gaetz has denied all wrongdoing. The Justice Department, following a yearslong sex-trafficking probe into the Florida congressman, informed Gaetz last February that it would not bring charges against him.
"I've never been found to have violated any ethical laws." What unethical laws has he been found to have violated?
"The House probe into Gaetz's conduct was reopened last July after the Ethics Committee initially deferred its investigation at the request of the Justice Department, which conducted its own years-long probe that concluded without charging Gaetz in 2023."
oopsie. did you MEAN to remind folks that your pussy doj refuses to do "merrick garland" about anything at all?
And did anyone else at all realize immediately the irony that your pussy democrap doj refused and the nazi-majority ethics committee is proceeding (or at least pretending to)?
But mostly you should all be ashamed that you could not... WOULD NOT elect a president nor party who would empower a doj to, you know, enforce the FUCKING RULE OF LAW!!!
but you're…