It was just a little over a month ago that Florida Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz stepped down from his position in Congress in order to prepare for his nomination as the Attorney General by President-elect Donald Trump. Then he withdrew his name from consideration following talk of a report about potential sexual allegations started to take off. Regardless, he’s now a former member of Congress.
And yet, the House Ethics Committee decided to go ahead and release the data from the probe into both his professional and private life, which was started under former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s 117 Congress. This is extremely unusual, as the interest of the committee is typically reserved for those who are sitting members of the legislative body.
It’s doubly weird considering he already announced that he would not be pursuing the nomination for Attorney General. Why release the findings of the investigation then? What purpose does it serve except to completely and utterly destroy his life and career? Putting this out in public looks a whole lot like revenge and not at all a desire to hold elected officials accountable.
And to top it all off, Pelosi and the ethics committee were caught in several lies within the report. Not a good look, Nancy.
Gaetz has now moved into the land of cable news punditry, with a new show on One America News television network. If he’s likely to pursue any sort of career in politics in the future, it seems unlikely he’d re-transition into the world of elected or confirmed public officialdom. As the old “Simpsons” meme goes, “Stop! Stop! He’s already dead!“ That being said, it’s worth examining the Gaetz ethics report — something the media is loath to do, inasmuch as they’ve reported on the findings as if the former Florida representative’s resignation and attorney general recusal is a prima facie admission that everything in it is true. The report’s major takeaways were that “there is evidence that Representative Gaetz paid women to travel to New York and Washington, D.C. for commercial sex” and that there was also “substantial evidence that Representative Gaetz used cocaine, ecstasy, and marijuana.”
To a certain extent, Gaetz has never claimed he’s been a choirboy all his life. “Let me first remind everyone that I am a representative in Congress, not a monk, and certainly not a criminal,” he said in an Op-Ed for the Washington Examiner in 2021, after the first spate of reports regarding his private life began coming out.
“My personal life is and always has been conducted on my own time and my own dime. Consensual adult relationships are not illegal. Although I’m sure some partisan crooks in Merrick Garland’s Justice Department want to pervert the truth and the law to go after me, I will not be intimidated or extorted,” Gaetz went on to write. “My lifestyle of yesteryear may be different from how I live now, but it was not and is not illegal. I defended [California Democrat] Rep. Katie Hill’s ‘throuple’ when her own Democratic colleagues wouldn’t,” he continued. “I just didn’t think it was anyone’s business.”
The Western Journal points out that Gaetz’s op-ed did not discuss the allegations of drug abuse and addiction, which was also a big part of what ultimately led to the implosion of Rep. Katie Hill. You can guarantee that the former Florida Republican congressman has done some questionable things in his past, which is a logical conclusion to draw from the statement he made about not being a monk. He probably partied just a little too hard in his youth.
“One of the few people who’s been following this story — and not taking everything in the report at face value — is Mollie Hemingway of The Federalist, who’s noted several issues with the report,” C. Douglas Golden of the Western Journal wrote. “The latest? At least one of the people mentioned in the report, a friend of Gaetz’s, has demanded corrections from the House Ethics Committee for mentions of him in the report which he says are erroneous. The letter was first reported by Marc Caputo of NeverTrump outlet The Bulwark, but Hemingway noted how it dovetailed with numerous other issues with the report.”
“At the outset, I’ll note the release of your committee’s report is bizarre, Congressman Gaetz is no longer subject to your jurisdiction, and the precedential effect of the release of this report cannot be overstated,” a lawyer for Chris Dorworth, the man mentioned, wrote in a letter to House Ethics Committee chair Rep. Michael Guest, a Mississippi Republican.
The letter then goes on to provide a list of list “three demonstrably false statements within your report” concerning Dorworth.
The first involved a mention that “Mr. Dorworth believed that Representative Gaetz invited people to his home on the evening of July 15, 2017.” This evening was critical, inasmuch as the most problematic allegation in the report — that Gaetz paid to have sex with a minor — happened on that night at Dorworth’s home.
“No, Mr. Dorworth did not and has never believed that Representative Gaetz invited people to his house on July 15, 2017,” the letter goes on to say.
“To support your claim that Gaetz ‘invited’ people to my client’s home, you cite, in footnote 97, a gate log that doesn’t include Gaetz’s name on it and reference an affidavit and deposition transcripts that say nothing about Gaetz inviting anyone to my client’s home.” [Emphasis theirs.]
It then goes on to add, “Mr. Dorworth’s deposition transcript does not support this statement in your report, and it should be retracted immediately.” This statement does a fairly good job of taking the legs out from underneath the most serious allegation made against Gaetz since the vast majority of what is contained in the Ethics Committee’s report is dependent on Dorworth’s memories of what transpired that night and that he lived in a complex where “non-residents are required to present a driver’s license before entering, and entry records are maintained.”
So if those records do not contain Gaetz name, there are only two explanations, First, they were tampered with. Second, the evidence in the case undergoes a dramatic shift.
The second discrepancy also involves that allegation, noting that “Mr. Dorworth was deposed and confronted with cell phone records showing that he was in fact at his residence during the party.”
“As an attendee at Mr. Dorworth’s deposition, I can assure you he was never ‘confronted with any cell phone records,” going on to say that the records “were deemed ‘Attorneys Eyes Only’ at the time of Mr. Dorworth’s deposition” and that he was “mortified that the Committee on Ethics would include such a ridiculous conclusion” in the document.
The third discrepancy is contained in that very same paragraph and says, “The Committee requested, through counsel, that Mr. Dorworth clarify his testimony regarding his whereabouts on the evening of July 15, 2017; his counsel did not respond.”
However, his counsel, who is the author of the letter, pointed out that he did, saying he sent out an email to the staff on Sept. 6, 2024.
“Interesting. The House ‘Ethics’ Committee is caught here just flat out lying about three things in its report on Matt Gaetz. (In addition to all the other alleged falsehoods),” Hemingway stated in an X repost of the letter:
Interesting. The House "Ethics" Committee is caught here just flat out lying about three things in its report on Matt Gaetz. (In addition to all the other alleged falsehoods) https://t.co/OwYyBRZS8F
— Mollie (@MZHemingway) December 24, 2024
And again, this isn’t the only issue with the report. As Hemingway noted in a November article, “the same two central witnesses the House Ethics Committee has relied on for its critical report of Gaetz” are the two witnesses whose credibility issues led the Department of Justice to drop its investigation of Gaetz in 2022.
One is a former tax assessor who agreed to plead guilty to charges that included “sex trafficking of a child, aggravated identity theft and wire fraud,” according to The Washington Post, in exchange for “substantial assistance” in building cases against other people.
The man is currently in prison for those charges. The other individual is the woman who was a minor that Gaetz allegedly paid to have sex with. The Post went on to reveal that her “testimony has issues that veteran prosecutors feel would not pass muster with a jury.”
So what’s the deal? Is this just a tale of political revenge? Are they trying to destroy any future political aspirations Gaetz might have? Who knows?
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