Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), who is currently under federal investigation over issues including possible child sex trafficking, has been implicated in questionable activities involving ex-Seminole County Tax Collector Joel Greenberg via text messages that have now been leaked to the Daily Beast. In short, according to these messages, Greenberg — who has since been accused of making fake IDs — brought Gaetz to a Seminole County Tax Collector’s office after hours and later told an agency employee that he was “showing congressman Gaetz what our operation looked like.”
According to the Daily Beast, federal authorities received a tip in early 2020 about Gaetz’s visit with Greenberg to the tax collector’s office. Around that time, agents “approached” former employees of the office as part of their investigation into Greenberg, according to the Daily Beast, and the leaked text messages have since been provided to the Secret Service, Florida Department of Law Enforcement, and another unspecified federal agency, according to a Daily Beast source. Thus, Gaetz appears to have been at least tangentially implicated in state-level law enforcement efforts in addition to the previously known federal probe.
Based on a timestamp associated with text messages revealing Greenberg’s otherwise covert visit with Gaetz to the county tax collector’s office, the original incident unfolded in April 2018. According to the Daily Beast’s description, the incident came to light after an assistant branch manager discovered “that driver licenses—which are normally turned in when expired at the tax office for shredding—were scattered all over the desk instead of in the appropriate disposal basket.” This manager notified their superior, and that higher-ranking staffer had the text conversation with Greenberg in question.
Suspiciously, later that year, Greenberg apparently also sought to use his powers to get Gaetz a replacement ID without going through the ordinary process. He asked an employee on a Sunday in September of 2018 if they could “assist one of our Congressmen in getting an emergency replacement ID or DL by Tuesday 2pm.” Greenberg claimed that the intended ID recipient had “lost” theirs and subsequently clarified that the member of Congress in question was “Matthew Louis Gaetz II.”
Gaetz and Greenberg are suspected of having “recruited young women and paid them for sex,” as summarized by the Daily Beast. Gaetz is suspected of possibly paying for a 17-year-old to travel with him under the pretenses of sexual interactions, which would constitute child sex trafficking. Gaetz has claimed that the federal investigation is part of an alleged extortion attempt targeting his family, but the federal investigation appears to have started long before the alleged extortion attempt began. Gaetz and Greenberg have a documented connection going back to at least 2017, when Greenberg — who is apparently currently in jail after already facing his own criminal charges — posted a photo of himself with the Congressman, writing that it was “Great catching up.”
