This week, the news emerged that Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) is under federal investigation by the Department of Justice over possible child sex trafficking. According to an article from The New York Times, Gaetz, who is an ardent Trump ally, is alleged to have possibly paid for a 17-year-old to travel across state lines with him under the pretenses of sexual interactions. Gaetz responded to the news with a bizarre claim that his family is the victim of an extortion attempt, but whatever truth there is to that allegation, the issues appear to be separate. Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) has proposed Gaetz’s removal from the House Judiciary Committee while the investigation unfolds.
As Lieu put it:
‘Rep Matt Gaetz should be taken off the [House Judiciary] Committee until the [Justice Department] investigation is completed. He should not be sitting on a Congressional Committee with oversight over the DOJ while the Department is investigating him.’
Rep Matt Gaetz should be taken off the @HouseJudiciary Committee until the @TheJusticeDept investigation is completed. He should not be sitting on a Congressional Committee with oversight over the DOJ while the Department is investigating him. https://t.co/TKRfSyCgHe
— Ted Lieu (@tedlieu) March 30, 2021
As part of his claims about the supposed extortion attempt, Gaetz claimed that his father had been wearing a wire in connection to a supposed federal investigation into the situation — but Gaetz’s revelation of this claimed wire-wearing seemingly ends its usefulness right then and there. Who’s going to talk to Gaetz’s father under just about any potentially questionable pretenses now that his son trumpeted to the world that he was supposedly wearing a wire? The Justice Department itself has declined to comment on the issues.
It was the Trump Justice Department under Trump AG Bill Barr that launched the investigation of Trump ally @mattgaetz. Must be political, right? https://t.co/GeuqNhbH3s
— David Corn (@DavidCornDC) March 31, 2021
Gaetz suggested during an interview on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show on Tuesday that he was facing political pushback because of his conservative views, but according to the Times, the federal investigation that he’s facing was started during the Trump era, when U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr was still on the job. In other words — no, the investigation isn’t the work of some liberal conspirators. Gaetz claims that the supposed extortion attempt got going just this month — well after the actual investigation itself apparently began. Thus, the issues appear to be decidedly separate, and the supposed extortion plot does not exonerate the Florida Congressman.
So, one of the central claims Gaetz made on Tucker Carlson tonight has already been debunked. The law enforcement official Gaetz says is trying to extort him isn’t even involved in the case, per @ktbenner https://t.co/wRV7gVVEYd
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 31, 2021
Check out Twitter’s response to Lieu below:
