Report: Matt Gaetz Is Well and Truly F–ked

Something that’s been made abundantly clear over the last few years is that there is no minimum IQ requirement to serve in Congress (or, obviously, the White House). There are numerous examples of this to choose from, including but not limited to: Rep. Louie Gohmert, who suggested he caught COVID-19 from wearing a mask; Senator Ted Cruz, who thought no one would notice him on a commercial flight to Cancún amidst a Texas state of emergency; Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who claimed the California wildfires were started by Jewish laser beams; and Senator Tommy Tuberville, who doesn’t know the three branches of government. On Thursday, though, a strong case was made for crowning Rep. Matt Gaetz the king of congressional morons, thanks to his decision to be as blatant as possible about allegedly paying women for sex.

Per the Daily Beast:

In two late-night Venmo transactions in May 2018, Rep. Matt Gaetz sent his friend, the accused sex trafficker Joel Greenberg, $900. The next morning, over the course of eight minutes, Greenberg used the same app to send three young women varying sums of money. In total, the transactions amounted to $900. The memo field for the first of Gaetz’s transactions to Greenberg was titled “Test.” In the second, the Florida GOP congressman wrote “hit up ___.” But instead of a blank, Gaetz wrote a nickname for one of the recipients. (The Daily Beast is not sharing that nickname because the teenager had only turned 18 less than six months before.) When Greenberg then made his Venmo payments to these three young women, he described the money as being for “Tuition,” “School,” and “School.”

Gaetz and Greenberg are both connected through Venmo to this then 18-year-old woman—who now works in the porn industry, according to a friend of the girl’s…. Greenberg and Gaetz are also connected on Venmo to at least one other woman whom Greenberg paid with taxpayer funds using a government-issued credit card. Seminole County auditors flagged hundreds of those payments as “questioned or unaccounted for,” and in total found more than $300,000 in suspicious or unjustified expenses…. Gaetz and Greenberg share Venmo connections with at least two women who received payments from Greenberg, and both have professional relationships with each other.

“No one has any idea what he was doing. Zero,” Daniel J. O’Keefe, an accountant who conducted a forensic audit for Seminole County, told the Daily Beast. “The arrogance of these guys. They just felt they were above the law. I’ve never seen it this bad.” O‘Keefe said that, in particular, hotels, weekend expenses, unspecified high-dollar “consulting” fees, and cash advances Greenberg made to himself and others raised a red flag. Reporters Jose Pagliery and Roger Sollenberger compared Greenberg’s Venmo transactions and credit card statements to Gaetz’s travel records and expenses, finding that “in some key places, the two timelines and circles of contact overlap.” As the Daily Beast reported the story, Gaetz’s previously public list of Venmo transactions mysteriously disappeared, though of course the company will have retained such records should a grand jury need to see them in the future.

Greenberg, who was first indicted last year and has now been charged on 33 counts, including sex trafficking of a minor, bribery, stalking, and defrauding the Paycheck Protection Program, was recently arrested again after violating the terms of his bond. At the end of last month, The New York Times reported that the Justice Department was probing Gaetz for allegedly having sex with a minor and transporting her across state lines; the minor in question is said to be the same one Greenberg was charged with trafficking. The two men, who are close friends—Greenberg has been described as Gaetz’s “wingman”—also allegedly slept with some of the same women they’re accused of paying for sex. And in no-good-very-bad news for Gaetz, on Thursday, a court hearing indicated that his good pal Greenberg will likely be cooperating with the feds, a turn of events the former tax collector’s lawyer suggested was not a positive development for the Florida representative. “I’m sure Matt Gaetz is not feeling very comfortable today,” Greenberg’s attorney told reporters. (Greenberg previously denied the charges against him but is expected to plead guilty as part of a cooperation deal with prosecutors.)

Gaetz has denied all the accusations against him, writing in an op-ed earlier this week that he has no plans to resign. While his office did not respond to the Daily Beast’s request for comment, a spokesperson from an outside P.R. firm suggested Gaetz plans to sue multiple parties for discussing the allegations against him. “The rumors, gossip, and self-serving misstatements of others will be addressed in due course by my legal team,” the statement said. In an additional comment, another person from the same public relations firm—who happens to be a pro-Trump pundit and former Apprentice contestant—added that a lawyer would be “closely monitoring [the Daily Beast‘s] coverage.”

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