Tag: Rep. Gaetz

Scoop: Matt Gaetz eyes early retirement to take job at Newsmax

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Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) has privately told confidants he’s seriously considering not seeking re-election and possibly leaving Congress early for a job at Newsmax, three sources with direct knowledge of the talks tell Axios.

Why it matters: Gaetz is a provocative figure on the right who’s attracted attention by being a fierce defender of former President Trump. The Republican also represents a politically potent district on the Florida panhandle.

What we’re hearing: Gaetz has told some of his allies he’s interested in becoming a media personality, and floated taking a role at Newsmax. Continue reading.

Matt Gaetz Is Said to Face Justice Dept. Inquiry Over Sex With an Underage Girl

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An inquiry into the Florida congressman was opened in the final months of the Trump administration, people briefed on it said.

Representative Matt Gaetz, Republican of Florida and a close ally of former President Donald J. Trump, is being investigated by the Justice Department over whether he had a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old and paid for her to travel with him, according to three people briefed on the matter.

Investigators are examining whether Mr. Gaetz violated federal sex trafficking laws, the people said. A variety of federal statutes make it illegal to induce someone under 18 to travel over state lines to engage in sex in exchange for money or something of value. The Justice Department regularly prosecutes such cases, and offenders often receive severe sentences.

It was not clear how Mr. Gaetz met the girl, believed to be 17 at the time of encounters about two years ago that investigators are scrutinizing, according to two of the people. Continue reading.

When Matt Gaetz Met Up With White Nationalists At CPAC

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Trumpist Republican politicians like Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz appear to be mimicking their role model’s ability to send comforting signals out to white nationalists while managing to keep them at arm’s length for the sake of plausible deniability. He showed how it’s done this past weekend at the Conservative Political Action Committee’s annual convention in Orlando.

A cluster of young white nationalists attending the simultaneous America First Political Action Committee convention—organized by notorious “Groyper Army” leader Nicholas Fuentes—invaded the CPAC gathering, where Fuentes has been banned, on Saturday. They managed to find Gaetz, who took photos with one of the group’s leaders—an outspoken neo-Nazi who uses the nom de plume “Speckzo”—and briefly conversed with them, apparently acknowledging his familiarity with Fuentes.

The video of the interaction shows one of the Groypers asking Gaetz if he was familiar with Fuentes. Gaetz made an indistinct reply while walking away with an aide, pointing a raised index finger in the direction of the young men. Continue reading.

‘No ethics’ Matt Gaetz criticized for having ‘no moral high ground’

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U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz, Republican of Florida, decided to weigh in on Ted Cruz abandoning his constituents for a trip to sunny Cancun while some of them literally froze to death. Gaetz came out by defending Cruz, saying no apology was necessary.

More specifically, Gaetz gaslighted the general public, by saying, “Ted Cruz should not have apologized.”

The Senator from Texas who used his two little girls as a shield for his bad behavior did not apologize. Continue reading.

Ethics panel rebukes Gaetz for tweet targeting Cohen

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The House Ethics Committee is formally admonishing Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) for a tweet that attempted to intimidate President Trump‘s former lawyer Michael Cohen ahead of his testimony to Congress last year.

In a report released on Friday, the Ethics Committee delivered a rare formal rebuke against Gaetz for his tweet, which it said “did not reflect creditably upon the House of Representatives” and “did not meet the standards by which Members of the House should govern themselves.”

But the panel concluded that Gaetz, a close Trump ally, did not violate witness tampering and obstruction of Congress laws. Continue reading.

Matt Gaetz appears to run afoul of House ethics rules

The Florida Republican spent thousands of dollars on a speechwriting consultant.

Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz has privately engaged in several spending practices in his nearly four years in office that appear to be in conflict with the House’s ethics rules, a POLITICO investigation has found.

Gaetz, a close ally of President Donald Trump from the Florida Panhandle, improperly sent tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars to a limited liability company linked to a speech-writing consultant who was ousted from the Trump administration, in direct conflict with House rules.

In another possible violation, a private company installed a television studio in his father’s home in Niceville, Fla., which Gaetz uses when he appears on television. Taxpayers foot the bill to rent the television camera, and the private company that built the studio — which Gaetz refuses to identify — takes a fee each time he appears on air, his office said. It’s unclear how much it cost the private company to construct the studio. Continue reading.

Matt Gaetz’s solution to Florida’s virus surge: ‘Lock up the boomers’

But younger people have increasingly contributed to COVID-19 surges, in Florida and elsewhere.

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) proposed to “lock up the boomers” in response to the recent surge of COVID-19 infections in his home state of Florida.

“I think younger people are not going to stomach another lockdown,” Gaetz said in a radio interview on Tuesday. “I think younger people are going to move about the country, so we’ve got to prepare for it.”

Gaetz also leaned on discredited claims about the virus, suggesting that skyrocketing cases in the state are due to Florida having “the most robust testing system in the nation,” and that travelers “coming in and out from Latin America” were impacting surges “substantially,” though there is no evidence to support that. Continue reading.

GOP’s Matt Gaetz obliterated after going full ‘Florida Man’ with racist, uninformed coronavirus tweet

AlterNet logoThere are all kinds of issues one might have with the coronavirus emergency relief bill. However, one of those issues is obviously not going to be earmarking money to go to medical facilities that are dealing directly with COVID-19 cases. But that is exactly what Florida Man Matt Gaetz did on Wednesday, when the congressman decided to try and score some racist dogwhistle points with fellow faux-fiscal conservatives.

Rep. Matt Gaetz

✔@RepMattGaetz

$13,000,000 in taxpayer funds could be going to families across the nation struggling to put food on the table in the midst of COVID-19.

Instead, it’s going to Howard University.

Education is important- but a $13 million check to Howard does not belong in COVID-19 relief.

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“Education is important- but a $13 million check to Howard does not belong in COVID-19 relief.” Attacking a prestigious HBCU is the kind of racism that bigots like Gaetz consider a salient point. Unfortunately for Mr. Florida Man, intelligence, facts, and the use of those two things are not a strong suit of Rep. Gaetz. Continue reading.

Trump allies got coronavirus tests despite lack of symptoms and shortage

Washington Post logoTwo close congressional allies of President Trump underwent coronavirus testing in recent days in apparent defiance of federal recommendations reserving those tests for patients exhibiting symptoms of infection — and amid growing concerns about the availability of testing for Americans who are sick.

Reps. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) and Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), the latter of whom Trump named last week as the next White House chief of staff, both said in statements that the tests showed no infection after exposure to a coronavirus carrier at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference last month in suburban Washington.

The two lawmakers also said they were exhibiting no symptoms of respiratory illness, raising questions of why they were tested at all. Continue reading.

These members are self-quarantining after being exposed to coronavirus patients

Lawmakers interacted with people later diagnosed with coronavirus

At least six members of Congress have said they interacted with individuals who tested positive for coronavirus and many have vowed to stay away from Capitol Hill temporarily.

Republican Reps. Doug Collins of Georgia and Matt Gaetz of Florida, as well as California Democrat Julia Brownley, announced Monday they were self-quarantining. Republican Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona and Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas said in separate statements Sunday they would also self-quarantine after interacting with a person who later tested positive for COVID-19.

Gaetz, Collins, Gosar and Cruz said they were exposed to a coronavirus patient at the Conservative Political Action Conference, which typically attracts thousands of conservatives and was held Feb. 26-29 at National Harbor in Maryland. Continue reading.