Defiant Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz is rejecting calls to step down from his office amid news of a federal investigation into whether he paid for sex or had sex with a 17-year-old and a drip of salacious allegations.
“I’m not resigning,” Gaetz said in a text to the Washington Examiner on Friday afternoon.
News broke on Tuesday of a federal investigation into Gaetz and whether he had sex with a 17-year-old, an allegation that he said is “totally false.” Reports followed that Gaetz showed nude photos of women whom he slept with to other lawmakers, including while on the House floor, and used cash apps to pay women found on the internet for sex, which he has also denied.
Few Republicans, other than firebrand Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, have come to Gaetz’s defense. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy told reporters that Gaetz could lose his committee seats if the allegations turn out to be true, and The View host Meghan McCain called on Gaetz to resign. His congressional office’s communications director, Luke Ball, left his office on Friday.
MATT GAETZ COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR QUITS AMID FEDERAL INVESTIGATION BOMBSHELLS
But Gaetz is standing his ground and claims a conspiracy is against him. On Friday afternoon, Gaetz tweeted a link to a story with the headline “The New York Times Goes Full-Blown ‘East German Stasi’ to Destroy Matt Gaetz.”
Gaetz said that the investigation into him is related to thwarting a separate FBI investigation into an alleged scheme to secure a $25 million loan payment from his father, Don Gaetz. On Wednesday, the Washington Examiner reported screenshots, an email chain, and a typed document in Gaetz’s possession that purportedly support his claims about the operation.
The scheme allegedly proposed by Bob Kent said that the funds would be used to “free” ex-FBI agent Robert Levinson from Iran. Kent, who has long been insistent of Levinson’s whereabouts though Levinson is presumed dead, would then either have made an investigation into Gaetz disappear or secure a pardon from President Joe Biden. Gaetz also alleged that former federal prosecutor and Levinson family attorney David McGee was part of the scheme, which McGee has denied.
“This former Department of Justice official tomorrow was supposed to be contacted by my father so that specific instructions could be given regarding the wiring of $4.5 million as a down payment on this bribe,” Gaetz said on Fox News on Tuesday. “I don’t think it’s a coincidence that tonight, somehow, the New York Times is leaking this information, smearing me, and ruining the investigation that would likely result in one of the former colleagues of the current DOJ being brought to justice for trying to extort me and my family.”
Skeptics of Gaetz note that any shakedown attempt by Kent could be completely separate from the investigation into possible sexual misconduct and not related to a DOJ plot against him.
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The sexual misconduct investigation into Gaetz, according to subsequent reports, is said to focus on cash payments and gifts given to women recruited online for sex. The look into Gaetz spun out of an investigation into his associate Joel Greenberg, a former tax collector in Seminole County, Florida.
“Providing for flights and hotel rooms for people that you’re dating who are of legal age is not a crime,” Gaetz said on Fox News on Tuesday.
