2024 might not be going the way former Congressman Matt Gaetz wanted it to, but we’ve no doubt he’ll somehow land on his feet. He’s the slimiest politician around — providing Ted Cruz isn’t in the room — and his vocal support of Donald Trump as well as the loyalty of House Speaker Mike Johnson, has ensured that the alleged child predator is here to stay.
Unless of course, the House Ethics Committee report—set to release on Thursday after a “secret vote”—is as half as bad as we’ve been led to believe.
Gaetz has been in hot water since 2020, after the Secret Service received an anonymous tip that the then 39-year-old had ties to Joel Greenburg. A government official, Greenburg was indicted for using his resources to create fake IDs to abet in sex trafficking underaged girls. The link pushed the Justice Department to look more closely at Gaetz and investigate whether he broke Federal sex trafficking laws by helping a 17-year-old to cross state lines, while simultaneously abusing taxpayer funds to afford the trip. After years of investigation, the report was sealed.
The drama was in Gaetz’s rearview window by the time he was tapped as Trump’s Attorney General. Gaetz resigned from Congress the same day, but after blowback from both sides, he withdrew his nomination and headed for greener pastures like Cameo and the far right, pro-Trump station One America News Network. That is, of course, providing the House Ethics Report doesn’t bow his chances with a news network described as “a combination of far-right wing talking points and dirt-stupid reporting.”
In wake of the news, the former congressman hoped on X.com to plead his innocence, but unsurprisingly, taking to social media to scream about being “FULLY EXONERATED” doesn’t exactly breed confidence. He railed against the injustice, writing, “I’ve never been charged. I’ve never been sued,” and insinuated that posting the report online gives him “no opportunity to debate or rebut” whatever might be revealed.
It’s like preemptively getting mad at your girlfriend for wanting to go through your text messages to check for cheating. One would hope that their partner trusted them enough to negate the need to check, but shouting about how unfair it is before it happens is a bit like stamping “guilty” right on your gigantic forehead. Proving he is in now way spiraling the drain, Gaetz hopped back online a few hours later, this time full of threats against his congressional fellows.
In lieu of having another public breakdown, Gaetz suggested burning the house to the ground. Mimicking a comment left on his first post, he fantasized about showing up to his elected seat (despite having resigned last month) in Congress come January just to file a motion allowing the release of every “Me Too” settlement that has ever been paid out. Nothing says innocence like wildly waving a proverbial gun at your coworkers!
He isn’t the first unhinged far-right politician to view ousting their colleagues’ closet of skeletons as a fantasy tactic. Fellow gremlin Marjorie Taylor Greene used similar threat just weeks ago in an attempt to help her dear friend and Republican buddy. Honestly, we would love to see it. Rather than sitting idly by, these very vocal vermin could bring down a reckoning like no other, and actually drain the swamp like they have been screeching about for years. In this day and age, it seems like there is one mantra other than “screw you I got mine” that the new GOP lives by: “if I go down, you’re coming with me.”
And we’d really be living the dream if the trash took the garbage with it on the way out.