(Ven)Mo Money, Mo Problems: The Matt Gaetz Saga

Whether he's the AG, a junior U.S. Senator, the governor of Florida, an advisor in the incoming fascist regime, or a House gadfly, Matt Gaetz is not going away.

Today’s PREVAIL podcast features something from my archives: my first interview with Gal Suburban, recorded in January of 2022—almost three full years ago. It was at that time that details about the federal investigation into Matt Gaetz began to emerge. I’m re-running our interview this week, with a new introduction, to emphasize the failures of Merrick Garland’s DOJ to indict Gaetz—and how that failure led us to a man my mother said “looks like Satan” coming this close to taking Garland’s job.

Here’s what I wrote in the accompanying PREVAIL piece in January 2022:

Whether he’s cavorting with fellow traitor Marjorie Taylor Greene, campaigning against Liz Cheney in Wyoming, breaching a SCIF, wearing a gas mask to work, adopting a Nestor, making Tucker Carlson uncomfortable, or getting Luckey in love, Matt Gaetz sure knows how to attract attention. But for all of these national-news hijinks, it’s his local behavior in his home state of Florida that will likely be his downfall.

Last March, [that is, March 2021] we learned that Gaetz is under federal investigation for alleged sex trafficking. “I only know that it has to do with women,” he said at the time. “I have a suspicion that someone is trying to re-categorize my generosity to ex-girlfriends as something more untoward.”

This week, [that is, January 2022] we learned that “that someone” may be one of his ex-girlfriends. As CBS News reported:

Multiple sources told CBS News that the ex-girlfriend and the other woman traveled to the Bahamas with Gaetz in 2018, along with a third woman with whom Gaetz was in a sexual relationship. That third woman was 18 at the time of the Bahamas trip, but investigators are also looking into whether she was 17 when the sexual relationship began. 

Investigators are trying to determine if any of the women were paid and were illegally trafficked across state or international lines for the purpose of sex with the congressman. 

Two sources familiar with the matter told CBS News it was Joel Greenberg, a former Florida county tax collector and associate of Gaetz's, who introduced Gaetz to that woman when she was 17 years old. Greenberg pleaded guilty in May 2021 to six federal charges, including trafficking of a minor.

Clearly, whatever happened in the Bahamas is not staying in the Bahamas.

I end that piece like this:

The Gaetz-Greenberg saga is a Florida Man story writ large. It involves sleazy local politicians, Ron DeSantis and Roger Stone, hand-surgeon pilots, sex workers, sex trafficking, strange adoptions, bricks of cash, the push to legalize smokable marijuana, an informal ambassador to Belarus, third-party ghost candidates, Hawaiian shirts, Venmo and CashApp, pay for play, Facebook money, oil spills, cryptocurrency named like a Whole Foods competitor, and, because it’s Florida, real estate development deals. And that’s just the stuff we know about. The details yet to emerge may prove even more audacious. Stay tuned.

Well, here we are. The details, assuming we eventually get to read the House Ethics Committee investigation report, are indeed more audacious. And, needless to say, Gaetz was never indicted, just as he wasn’t indicted for breaching the SCIF—even though he was literally participating in some of the same crimes Joel Greenberg is now in prison for committing. Merrick Garland gonna Merrick Garland.

On the other hand, one of the Florida swamp creatures Gal talks about, Frank Artiles, who ran a ghost candidate in a state race in Florida to siphon votes from the incumbent Democrat, was sentenced this week to 60 days in prison for excessive campaign contributions, conspiring to make campaign contributions and procuring the falsification of a candidate oath form. [sarcastic clapping] All that brazen criminality for a stint in the hoosegow that sounds more like payment terms than a prison sentence.

In my old piece, I also say this:

Matt Gaetz is like a younger version of Donald Trump. He’s arrogant, he’s spoiled, his father was a self-made millionaire who was always around to bail him out when he took things too far, he usually avoids any serious consequences for his rotten actions, he enjoys what used to be euphemistically known as the “playboy lifestyle,” and his friends are gross.

As usual, there were no consequences for his actions—unless you consider not getting to be Attorney General a consequence. And as usual, Matt Gaetz will get away with what he did. Trump will almost certainly pardon him, and if he isn’t tapped to take Marco Rubio’s spot in the Senate, Gaetz will land some cushy job destroying lives in the incoming regime. Like a supervillain might say, while fleeing the scene of the crime in some third-rate comic book, “You haven’t seen the last of Rapey McForehead!”

Gal and I also mock crypto and crypto enthusiasts, and we bash Matt Damon and Tom Brady for hawking crypto exchanges on commercials that ran incessantly in January 2022. We got that right, too.

Finally, one of the Florida swamp creatures Gal and I talk about, Pam Bondi, is Trump’s new choice to lead the Justice Department. That’s the same Pam Bondi who, as the attorney general for the Sunshine State, accepted a $25,000 bribe campaign contribution from Donald and immediately declined to join the lawsuit against the crooked Trump University. (As Rick says in Casablanca, “I don’t mind a parasite; I object to a cut-rate one.”) She’s thirsty for power and fame, and, as we’ve long known, the true north on her moral compass is Orange Grover Cleveland.

Will the Senate confirm Pam Bondi, as petty bribery is a lesser offense than child sex trafficking? Time and Susan Collins will tell.

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PROGRAMMING NOTES

There is no new episode of PREVAIL next week. The podcast will be back on December 6. Happy Thanksgiving! It’s not going to be a festive Turkey Day this year, but as my mom likes to say: there’s always, always something to be thankful for. I’m thankful for you, and I’m thankful for Gal Suburban, for doing what she does in the service of truth, justice, and American democracy.

And now, here is the January 2022 episode of PREVAIL:

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LISTEN TO THE EPISODE

S8 E11:  I-Need-An-Attorney General: The Matt Gaetz Episode (with Gal Suburban)

After a new introduction reflecting on the SCIF-breaching, Venmo-using, recently-resigned Florida Congressman, Greg Olear revisits his first interview with Gal Suburban, in which she discusses Trump’s pick to lead the Justice Department, Matt Gaetz, and other creatures of the Florida swamp, including Matt’s onetime wingman, Joel Greenberg, who is now serving an 11-year in prison for trafficking a 17-year-old girl, stalking a political rival and stealing four hundred grand of taxpayer’s money to buy crypto.

Gal Suburban is an open source intelligence researcher extraordinaire. She’s helped countless investigators, journalists, politicians, and concerned citizens understand the threats to our national security presented by rightwing chaos agents, corrupt Floridians like Matt Gaetz, the Mike Flynn/Ivan Raiklin network, and other antidemocratic forces.

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Photo credit: Gage Skidmore. U.S. Congressman Matt Gaetz speaking with attendees at the 2020 Student Action Summit hosted by Turning Point USA at the Palm Beach County Convention Center in West Palm Beach, Florida.