Atop the list of reasons why Matt Gaetz, whom Trump calls the tip of his spear in an oblique reference to sexual comraderie, there is yet another reason. The guy’s so clueless as to use Venmo to pay off his “awesome” women.
ABC News previously reported that House investigators had subpoenaed Venmo for Gaetz’s records and had been showing them to witnesses, asking if they were for sex or drugs. The Venmo records totaling over $10,000 in payments were shown to the witnesses, who testified that some of the payments were from Gaetz and were for sex, a source familiar with the investigation told ABC News.
There were also some checks and paypal transfers, but the point is that if you’re going to pay someone off, what sort of blithering idiot creates a digital trail? We now have the answer. The sort of blithering idiot Trump nominates to be Attorney General of the United States of America.
Gaetz claims he’s just a generous sort of fellow and there’s no “here” here.
Gaetz previously dismissed allegations that he paid for sex, saying that “someone is trying to recategorize my generosity to ex-girlfriends as something more untoward.”
So if Gaetz claims he’s just a generous kinda guy, why would there be any problem with his sending money to his “ex-girlfriends,” who married Ginger Luckey in August, 2021? That would be the two exes.
The records are said to show payments made by Gaetz between July 2017 and January 2019, totaling $10,224.02 and allegedly sent to two witnesses who testified in probes by both the House and the Justice Department. Payments ranged from $100 to over $700 and were reportedly labeled with notes such as “Gift,” “Car deductible,” and “Refreshments.” Other notes show comments, such as “being awesome” and “xtra 4 u.”
Having resigned from Congress the day after he was nominated to be AG, the House Ethics Committee was putatively stripped of its jurisdiction since he was no longer a member. Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, has argued that it would create bad precedent for the committee to release its “draft” report now that Gaetz is just an ordinary citizen, and is “strongly urging” the committee not to release the report, despite the calls for its disclosure by Senate Republicans.
“I’m going to strongly request that the Ethics Committee not issue the report, because that is not the way we do things in the House,” Johnson told reporters at the U.S. Capitol. “And I think that would be a terrible precedent to set.”
Ethics reports have previously been released after a member’s resignation, though it is extremely rare.
Of course, it’s also extremely rare for the target of an ethics probe to leave Congress following a nomination to the cabinet post of attorney general, where the nominee would go through the Senate’s “advice and consent” vetting process and be subject to a hearing to determine whether he’s worthy of the position.
Trump has publicly insisted that he’s standing firm behind his choice of Gaetz, secure in the knowledge that Gaetz will do whatever is asked of him, law and Constitution be damned. Behind the scenes, it’s suggested that Trump may realize that Gaetz isn’t going to happen, and that this reflects a “flood the zone” tactic.
In his private conversations over the past few days, President-elect Donald J. Trump has admitted that his besieged choice for attorney general, Matt Gaetz, has less than even odds of being confirmed by the Senate.
But Mr. Trump has shown no sign of withdrawing the nomination, which speaks volumes about his mind-set as he staffs his second administration. He is making calls on Mr. Gaetz’s behalf, and he remains confident that even if Mr. Gaetz does not make it, the standard for an acceptable candidate will have shifted so much that the Senate may simply approve his other nominees who have appalled much of Washington.
While it seems highly unlikely that Trump’s nomination of Gaetz was intended to be a sacrificial lamb in order to get the Senate to confirm other nominees, Gabbard, RFK, Hegseth and his latest, Linda McMahon at Education, that might end up being the outcome nonetheless. After all, will Senate Republicans have the guts to reject much, if not most, of the nominees whose primary qualification is fealty to Trump?
Of course, the difference with Gaetz is that he isn’t merely wholly unqualified to be attorney general, with his two years of legal practice that included debt collection for daddy, but his paying off women for sex together with his appetite for underage women. Others have their own issues, but none are so fundamentally unseemly while being nominated for the top law enforcement position in the nation.
The argument in favor of Gaetz really has nothing to do with Gaetz, but with Trump. Elections have consequences. Trump should get a cabinet of his choosing. Gaetz either did nothing wrong or the good ol’ tu quoque reply, Bill Clinton got a blow job in the White House, so there.
The question thus becomes how far down we’re prepared to define deviancy. And there are Venmo receipts to prove it. But the problem isn’t just that Gaetz is a sleezebag, which will surprise no one, but that the president-elect of the United States didn’t see nominating a sleezebag as AG to be a problem. And he still doesn’t. At least he had the good judgment of paying off his porn star with check’s purporting to be legal fees rather than “being awesome.”
So, it is not just 4D chess to make Gaetz slither quietly away from it all? Or does he just come back and get sworn in to his old and newly reelected seat? Or would that be too x tra even for MG?
“Atop the list of reasons why Matt Gaetz, whom Trump calls the tip of his spear in an oblique reference to sexual comraderie,…” I thought that kind of remark would be beneath you. Guess I was wrong. [Ed. Note: No need to guess when I spell it out.]
And the FBI and a grand jury investigated this for 2 years and decided the witnesses weren’t credible. Do you really think the House Ethics Committee found something the Bureau and grand jury didn’t? This is like Tulsi Gabbard or Trump being Russian agents, or Pete Hegseth’s tattoos proving he’s a white supremacist, much ado about nothing.
Wait. A. Minute. The ledger entries are, well, interesting. Do we really need an AG nominee who might be subject to compromise, whether on legal or moral grounds? There was a time when morality mattered. When one’s past personal choices were considered part of the character evaluation when seeking public elevation. Yeah, I know, I know… tu quoque me to death now.
There is nothing to suggest the witnesses were not found credible. It may bring you comfort to believe baseless nonsense, but that doesn’t make it real.
[Ed. Note: To the extent there is reliable information about why the DoJ decided not to prosecute, here’s a CNN post from February, 2023.]
[Ed. Note: Remember, this is a law blog and when you write something that’s fundamentally wrong, it’s going to get trashed so as not to make people stupider.]
To my understanding, you’re conflating 2 different allegations against Mr. Gaetz: 1. The FBI-investigated underage sex traffic allegations, and 2. payments to women who are adult (in the sense of ‘age over 18’), which the FBI did not investigate.
Looking at the payments to the adult women,the financial records show that Gaetz was making payments to 2 of them during overlapping time periods. There is not a standard payment, which cuts against there being a formal pay scale for sex work, but there are also a suspicious amount of payments for a normal dating relationship–leaving a probable sugar daddy-type relationship.
From the article, SHG isn’t just annoyed at this sideshow, but at Gaetz’s lack of qualifications. By way of context, Merrick Garland–the outgoing AG–was of sufficient legal acumen to be a Supreme Court candidate. Gaetz not only lacks legal experience, this sort of tomfoolery makes him appear a buffoon.
As always, please correct my thinking if I am missing anything obvious.
You now have your answer (unless you think Gaetz resigned from congress on a lark).
Where is the man who lamented “presumption of innocence, both as a legal rule as well as a principle, has been under sustained attack for a while” and “Even people who should, one would hope, know better seem at best to be fair-weather friends to the presumption of innocence”? Is he so distraught over the triumph of the evil Trump that he has become “unduly passionate” and has joined the mob of angry snowflakes “undermining our foundational legal principles”?
After 2 years of vigorous and highly motivated “investigation” that enlisted disgruntled former friends and girlfriends in a Beria-style witch hunt, the Gaetz-hating, lawfaring Department of “Justice”, which he effectively and tenaciously investigated and exposed using his seat on the Judiciary committee, came up with nothing. Do you really want to be one of the sycophants parroting their salacious and unethical leaks in order to undermine the presumption of innocence and damage the target of their lawfare attack?
I miss yesterday’s topic already.
Amen.
What is the test of Caesar’s wife?
Caesar’s wife must be above suspicion
(proverb) Those in positions of authority should avoid even the implication of impropriety.
That ship sailed a while ago, and it has just been sailing farther from port since then. It left Mary Jo Kopechne behind.
Is there a difference between being sent to prison and being attorney general? If you try really hard, can you figure out what that difference is?
As already said, no one (including the most dedicated Trumpkins) knows why Gaetz wasn’t prosecuted. But when the majority of Republican senators are prepared to vote against Gaetz, and want the report disclosed despite their evoking Trump’s anger, there is good reason to wonder why they, who are far more knowledgeable about Gaetz (and Trump) than you will ever be, believe Gaetz is a mutt who should never have been nominated for AG.
I’m gonna tell everybody
What those young girls will do for you
The highs and lows of relevant lyrics.
Is he an honest politician, i.e. one that stays bought?
Can he be blackmailed since everything is out in the open?
Will he be loyal to those that helped him along the way?
Sounds to.me like he’s better qualified than some of the other politicians.
Let us not forget that Trump was elected in spite of his criminal record. The general population sent a strong message of jury nullification and it will carry over to.his picks.
You’ve made a basic error in assuming that everyone who voted for Trump was a MAGA believer rather than voting against Harris. You’ve also wrongly assume that voting for Trump means anything Trump does is acceptable.
Neither party can afford to act as if accusations are true (even if likely). DC and associated press is too loose with the truth. It’s hard to know if the public cares enough to apply pressure. This is not the first time a Congressman has had a similar list of accusations and maintained a significant political career.
I’m not American, but I missed the part where the media was involved in drafting the ethics report on Gaetz.
Also, the attorney for Gaetz’s accuser seems to have been quoted quite directly in media, reports. Maybe he was not telling the truth or has been lied to, but the claim remains.
If only guilt beyond a reasonable doubt is sufficient to disqualify someone for office, why bother having confirmation hearings at all?
Troll Politics vs. Six Ways From Sunday. Which liar do we trust?
1) Didn’t we learn from Jerry Springer not to pay for hookers using personally identifying forms of payment?
2) Matt Gaetz is a “serious” pick from Trump, and he intends to ram him through. Trump’s picks aren’t meant to deflect from other picks at all. Rather, they are sending a clear message that Trump is in charge, he’s calling the shots, and the Senate GOP will swallow his load with a smile on their face and confirm his nominees. Trump doesn’t need qualified people, he needs yes men (and women), and he’s forcing the Senate to accept it. We are witnessing the real-time cucking of a co-equal branch of government, and it’s a bit scary.