In The Matter of Allegations Relating to Gaetz

Update: Io Saturnalia to Steve In Manhattan for tagging this article for Crooks & Liars' Mike's Blog Round-Up. I hope everyone's safe and healthy and enjoying whatever there is of the holiday spirit. Except for Matt Gaetz. I hope he rots.

I need to get back into the blogging mindset, and what better way to get at it than to report on the nastiness of Florida's Worst Scuzzbucket (AKA Matt Gaetz)?

After all the storm and fury over the House Ethics' investigation into his misconduct with underage women - where the House voted to suppress the committee's report while trump was offering Gaetz control of the Justice Department, all of it rendered moot when Gaetz dropped out after a disastrous meeting with angry Senators poised to deny him the post - the committee decided to leak that report this week anyway.

Going by the summary, here are the things that Gaetz did that crossed a whole bunch of lines (skip to page two):

In sum, the Committee found substantial evidence of the following:

• From at least 2017 to 2020, Representative Gaetz regularly paid women for engaging in sexual activity with him.

• In 2017, Representative Gaetz engaged in sexual activity with a 17-year-old girl.

• During the period 2017 to 2019, Representative Gaetz used or possessed illegal drugs, including cocaine and ecstasy, on multiple occasions.

• Representative Gaetz accepted gifts, including transportation and lodging in connection with a 2018 trip to the Bahamas, in excess of permissible amounts.

• In 2018, Representative Gaetz arranged for his Chief of Staff to assist a woman with whom he engaged in sexual activity in obtaining a passport, falsely indicating to the U.S. Department of State that she was a constituent.

• Representative Gaetz knowingly and willfully sought to impede and obstruct the Committee’s investigation of his conduct.

• Representative Gaetz has acted in a manner that reflects discreditably upon the House.

Based on the above, the Committee concluded there was substantial evidence that Representative Gaetz violated House Rules, state and federal laws, and other standards of conduct prohibiting prostitution, statutory rape, illicit drug use, acceptance of impermissible gifts, the provision of special favors and privileges, and obstruction of Congress.

This is the stuff that the House Ethics committee uncovered in spite of a Justice Department's investigation into Gaetz's criminal behavior back in 2021 that ended up going nowhere. The DOJ argued at the time that they couldn't proceed to criminal charges on Gaetz because their witnesses were either unreliable on the stand or unwilling to testify. You can see that as well in the committee's work where most of the teenage girls claimed their Fifth Amendment rights to avoid self-incrimination, but even then the congresscritters and their staffs were able to put the pieces together that would have made a legitimate criminal case. Goddamn.

One of the horrifying elements of these reports is how much of Gaetz's misconduct was openly known. Not so much the prostitution, but his eagerness to sex women far younger than his own age range and his often drunken (now allegedly drugged) state of mind. Stories were rife about fellow legislators at both the state house and congressional levels how Gaetz would brag about and share pictures of his sexual exploits in the public forums. For all that his fellow congresscritters were bothered by his vulgarity, none of them cared enough to stop him until his business buddy Joel Greenberg got caught and revealed the nastier stuff hiding under the Florida GOP's foundations. 

While a solid number of our Republican elected officials DO care about their own personal conduct and ethics, they do happily turn a blind eye to a lot of this bad behavior because of two reasons: Some of them fear "rocking the boat" and disrupting their party's access to power; and Some of them honestly don't see the harm of sexually exploiting / abusing young women - even underage - because their own conservative philosophy - that women and the young are not part of their elite status and thus exploitable by their laws - allows it.

Granted, Democrats in power get caught in their own sex scandals and misconduct towards young women as well, but on this scale? With this level of disdain and disregard that Gaetz kept displaying towards his targets? You can feel from just reading the report the contempt he had, the lack of emotional connection to most of the girls he manhandled.

When you expand your view to examine the sexual misconduct we've seen over the years, you should notice that when it comes to Republican sex scandals there's an open display of misogyny and toxic masculinity driving most of that behavior. It's at a point where a more nonpartisan government would require full drug testing and ID checks of women under 40 at every Republican-based country club and convention gatherings just to make sure they're not violating laws.

And we STILL haven't seen a full accounting of Jeffrey Epstein's Client List containing the names of Men Of Power - both Republican and Democrat and CEO billionaire alike - who "flew the Lolita Express" engaging in sexual misconduct with seriously underaged girls.

Do us a huge favor, Joe Biden: Just before you leave office this January 20th 2025 PLEASE release the Epstein Client List (redacting the names of victims ONLY) not only to the general public but to every law enforcement agency on the planet.

Women remain abused as long as Men of Power retain that power to abuse them. THIS NEEDS TO END.

And ship Gaetz to the nearest prison for breaking drug use and statutory rape laws, please and thanks this Saturnalia season.