Womp womp — Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), an ardent ally of ex-President Donald Trump, was blocked from meeting with the former commander-in-chief at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida in recent days, according to CNN. Reportedly, Gaetz sought a meeting after the public revelation that he is under federal investigation over issues including potential child sex trafficking and possibly paying women for sex in violation of anti-prostitution laws. The Gaetz investigation began while Trump’s team was still in power, apparently.
According to CNN, Gaetz’s reported request for a meeting was blocked by aides working with the ex-president. As the outlet put it:
‘Two people familiar with the matter said Gaetz tried to schedule a visit with Trump after it was first revealed that he was being investigated, but the request was rejected by aides close to the former President, who have urged Trump not to stick his neck out to defend Gaetz.’
Harlan Hill, a far-right political commentator who was banned from appearing on Fox News after referring to Kamala Harris as a “lying bitch” on Twitter and is working as a spokesman for Gaetz, insisted that the Congressman “has not sought to meet with President Trump himself,” although these people have obviously dismantled their own credibility. Whether Hill’s statement was twisted to skip around the truth or just an outright lie is unclear. On a similar note, longtime Trump adviser Jason Miller claimed that Gaetz never sought a one-on-one with the ex-president — but again, these people aren’t remotely trustworthy. They’ve lied over and over.
So far, Trump has issued only brief public comments about Gaetz. After a report from The New York Times that the Congressman had sought a blanket pardon from Trump in the final stretches of his time in the White House, the former president issued a brief public statement insisting in part that Gaetz “has never asked me for a pardon” — although the original allegation from the Times was that Gaetz had approached White House staffers, not Trump.
