Matt Gaetz Is Going to Jail
Democrats should be piling on while they can
Matt Gaetz, congressman from Florida, the darling of the Trumpist wing of the Republican Party, is almost certain to be going to jail for several years for child sex trafficking. Every day he remains in Congress, uncensured, still in his committee assignments, still serving as a member of the House, is proof that House Republicans are too cowardly to even temporarily remove a guy who’s being criminally investigated for crimes of which he is almost certain to be convicted. This is a gift for the Democratic Party.
How certain is his conviction? The Department of Justice is slowly, quietly, methodically, building up a case so damning that they hope they may include Gaetz in the set of doomed Trumpists who will turn on their associates above them on the ladder. That’s how organized crime investigations work. And have no doubt: the Trump wing of the Republican Party is an example of organized crime.
The case is being built piece by piece. Gaetz is under investigation for at least three crimes: sex trafficking a seventeen-year-old, violating the Mann Act (which prohibits taking a woman across state lines for prostitution), and obstruction of justice. Let’s consider what the DoJ, or those working with them, have already confirmed:
- Gaetz’s ex-girlfriend, an as-yet-unnamed former Capitol Hill staffer, has been granted immunity and testified in January before a grand jury investigating the Congressman and allegations “involving commercial sex acts with adult and minor women, as well as obstruction of justice.” She has agreed to cooperate with the prosecution. She has helped investigators understand hundreds of records in the hands of prosecutors, including receipts for alleged payments for sex.
- The Justice Department has formally entered into a plea agreement with Joel Greenberg, a former Florida tax official and one-time close friend of Gaetz, which requires him to cooperate fully with federal prosecutors in other ongoing investigations and prosecutions after pleading guilty to charges that Greenberg had knowingly solicited and paid for sex with a minor. Federal judge Gregory Presnell delayed his sentencing of Greenberg until 29 March 2022 to allow him more time to cooperate in the Gaetz investigation. His sentencing is scheduled for Tuesday.
- Another associate of Gaetz has been questioned by the Justice Department regarding not only the Congressman’s parties with underage women but also regarding possible influence peddling involving the medical marijuana industry and a 2020 Florida Senate race in which a third-party candidate ran as a spoiler.
- Florida radio host “Big Joe” Joe Ellicott, whose attorney announced the same thing as Greenberg’s attorney after he pled guilty to charges in a separate bribery scheme, has pledged to cooperate “to shed light” on allegations against Gaetz including sexual contact with a minor, sex trafficking, and obstruction of justice.
- In the second half of 2021 the Department of Justice added two of its top prosecutors to the Gaetz case. One is a public corruption investigator with expertise in child exploitation cases. The other is the deputy chief of the DoJ’s Public Integrity Unit, the section most closely involved in the decision whether or not to move a criminal investigation of a federal official to indictment and trial. In response, Gaetz has reportedly hired Marc Ferrnich, the defence attorney of convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, drug lord ‘El Chapo’, mafioso “Junior” Gotti, and the Nxivm sex cult leader Keith Raniere.
It should be noted that Gaetz has as yet been convicted of no crime. He has not yet been indicted, pending a decision by the Public Integrity Unit and the grand jury, and they are thinking in terms of a very light bar for conviction and how this case fits within the larger organized crime case. However, there is already sufficient cause for Democrats to use Gaetz and his kid-glove treatment in the House against the Republicans in the midterms. Every House Republican seeking reelection in a swing district in 2022 could and should be forced to explain why their party has refused to do anything about an alleged child sex trafficker in their own caucus. Along with such ill-suited examples as Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert, Gaetz is a target too big to miss. Where independent voters matter, tying the Republican brand to these losers could mean the difference between keeping and losing the House.
