The scandal upending Matt Gaetz’s meteoric rise has spooked some bigwig supporters into looking beyond the Florida Republican, fearing that allegations he paid for sex, including with a 17-year-old, could prove insurmountable, according to multiple sources.
A group of Florida elected officials, donors, strategists, and one former official took stock of Gaetz’s political future Thursday and didn’t like what they saw — even as the embattled lawmaker a day later refused to step down. If he is forced to resign, his western Panhandle seat in Florida’s 1st Congressional District would go to a special election.
“They’re making the assessment that it’s going to be very difficult for Matt to come out of this,” said a source familiar with the discussion. “They love the guy, and they’ve been there for him. And they’re shaking their heads going, ‘Ugh.’”
Just how long the congressman can weather the increasingly lurid tales remains a subject of backroom speculation in the state capital of Tallahassee and across the Sunshine State.
If Gaetz eventually steps down, the Tallahassee group that talked on Thursday has zeroed in on two potential candidates. One is activist and far-right personality Laura Loomer. The other is veteran Anna Paulina Luna.
FEW REPUBLICAN LAWMAKERS STEP UP TO DEFEND GAETZ
Both scored the support of Gaetz and former President Donald Trump’s while running for congressional office last year, with Loomer challenging Lois Frankel in Florida’s 21st Congressional District for the Democrat’s longtime seat in West Palm Beach, while Luna competed against Pinellas County Democrat Charlie Crist in the 13th District.
Both were defeated but are viewed as naturals for Gaetz’s seat by his erstwhile supporters. Loomer did not return a request for comment. A representative for Luna, though, directed the Washington Examiner to a tweet in which Luna defended Gaetz and endorsed his claim of extortion.
“.@RepMattGaetz is one of the TOP conservatives in our country. I believe a bureaucrat would try to take him down,” Luna wrote. “@mattgaetz is my friend. He has only ever been extremely respectful & kind to both my husband and myself. #IbelieveGaetz”
On Tuesday, the New York Times reported that the Justice Department is investigating whether Gaetz had sex with a 17-year-old girl and provided her with compensation, an allegation he said is “totally false.” Reports later accused Gaetz of showing nude photos of women whom he claimed to have slept with to other lawmakers, including while on the House floor. Those reports also detailed how he allegedly used cash apps to pay women found on the internet for sex, which he has also denied.
“Providing for flights and hotel rooms for people that you’re dating who are of legal age is not a crime,” Gaetz told on Fox News on Tuesday.
“Holding pattern”
His denials, however, have done little to cause other House Republicans to rush to his defense. And GOP circles in Florida are buzzing about who might run in a special election, should he be convinced or forced to give up his seat.
“Everyone is really in a holding a pattern,” another source said. “But the writing is pretty clearly on the wall unless he can pull a rabbit out of the hat.”
On Thursday, new reporting said the federal inquiry was focused on whether women recruited online for sex received cash payments from Gaetz and an associate, Joel Greenberg, a former county tax collector charged with sex trafficking a minor. Gaetz, who was elected in 2016, has not been charged with a crime in an inquiry that began in the final months of the Trump administration.
Sources voiced concerns amid the steady drip of seedy allegations surfacing while repeatedly emphasizing Gaetz’s right to due process.
“We always thought he was very reckless with regard to the way that he would kind of flaunt his bachelorhood and bring these very attractive, but very questionable, young women to events,” said the source familiar with talks among the half-dozen prominent local Republicans, all of whom have supported Gaetz in the past. “Like, ‘Where did you find that one?’ People would say, ‘That person doesn’t really seem like a good fit for, you know, a Republican cotillion.’”
“Morally, you should resign,” this person added, but like others, the source emphasized Gaetz’s legal rights and called for a full inquiry into the congressman’s claims that he was the subject of a purported extortion scheme.
“They’re already talking about who’s going to take his seat,” this person said of the discussions, then added, “The vultures are circling.”
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, a California Republican, said Wednesday that GOP leaders would remove Gaetz from his committee assignments if the charges are proven to be true.
A discussion over who could fill the Florida firebrand’s shoes surfaced publicly toward the end of the week, with supporters of Florida state Rep. Alex Andrade boosting him on Twitter. The move was frowned on by more prominent party operatives.
“I would expect a cattle call if [Gaetz] does choose to resign,” one operative said, predicting Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is eyeing reelection in 2022 and perhaps a White House bid two years later, would be eager to stay away.
“Biting their tongue”
Trump, too, is expected to keep his distance, even though Gaetz is well-liked by his constituents and Florida Republicans more generally for his staunch defense of the 45th president and his “Make America Great Again” movement,
“I don’t think he wants any more controversy right now — someone else’s, anyway,” another source said. Trump adviser Jason Miller did not return a request for comment.
“Everyone’s kind of biting their tongue and looking around,” said one Florida operative.
Defenders said they were waiting for the dust to settle before casting judgment. Several referenced former California Rep. Katie Hill, a Democrat who resigned her seat after she admitted to an “inappropriate” relationship with a campaign staffer in violation of House rules.
“I would be shocked if people start aggressively trying to recruit or get someone to agree to saying something [publicly] over the next few days, because that allows people to assume you believe that he’s a dead man walking,” said one Gaetz ally.
“If you’re really a supporter of Matt Gaetz and a friend of Matt Gaetz, you expect he’s gonna fight this out, and he’s going to come out on top — or he’s going to get indicted, and we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it,” this ally of the lawmaker added.
Some Florida operatives are loath to address the crisis engulfing Gaetz, in part because of how important the state has become.
After losing both chambers of Congress and the White House in the 2020 elections, “we’re locked out of federal power,” one operative said, and Florida is the center of the GOP political universe.
“You’ve got Trump at Mar-a-Lago. You’ve got Rick Scott in Naples running the [National Republican Senatorial Committee]. You’ve got DeSantis running for reelection,” he said. “The entire focus right now in the Republican Party is winning Florida back and trying to retake the House in 2022.”
“Panhandle boy”
Gaetz’s departure would leave a void at a time of reckoning for the party, some say, as the GOP looks to carve a path forward as Trump mulls his political future.
“If he gets knocked out of the game, we have one less voice able to penetrate through all the noise and speak the truth. He was one of the only ones fighting the good fight,” said one source of Gaetz. “There aren’t that many of them in the Republican Party.”
Sid Dinerstein, the former chairman of the Palm Beach County Republican Party, praised Gaetz: “Unlike most Republicans, he’s a warrior, not a legislator.”
On Friday, Gaetz’s communications director stepped down “out of principle.”
“Getting mixed up with this Greenberg guy, that may be the kiss of death. I don’t know if he survives this,” one longtime operative said.
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Outside of Tallahassee, one operative was quicker to envisage Gaetz’s ouster.
“The Panhandle boy,” one South Florida source said, “he’s toast.”
