Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz brushed off a House Ethics Committee investigation of a tweet in which he seemed to threaten President Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen.
“Folks think they can get to the president through me because I work with the president a lot, talk to the president a lot,” Gaetz said in a Fox News interview Friday.
The 37-year-old Republican, a frequent Trump defender, denies that he spoke with Trump about Cohen before suggesting he was an adulterer. “No, absolutely not,” Gaetz said, asserting he had “no conversation like that with the president.”
Gaetz’s cryptic tweet, which he deleted and said was not meant to be a threat to Cohen, was issued in February as the former Trump lawyer testified to the House Intelligence Committee.
Cohen once said he would take a bullet for Trump, but facing tax and bank fraud charges, he cooperated with federal investigators and claimed Trump was a racist who continued working on a building project in Russia while campaigning to be president. He also implicated Trump after pleading guilty to a campaign finance violation for brokering hush money to women who claimed affairs with Trump.
“Do your wife & father-in-law know about your girlfriends?” Gaetz tweeted at Cohen as he testified. “Maybe tonight would be a good time for that chat. I wonder if she’ll remain faithful when you’re in prison. She’s about to learn a lot…”
Gaetz never released information on any alleged affairs. Cohen currently is serving a three-year prison sentence.
