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Last week there was a discussion on the motte about Trump’s cabinet picks, in particular about Rubio who is something of a hawk. This goes against what many of Trump’s isolationist supporters want. It’s almost certain that Trump is making these picks extremely haphazardly, deciding on names after a bare modicum of thought and prioritizing vibes, “loyalty”, and Fox news appearances over any other concerns. The NYT has documented this extensively, and it’s entirely in keeping with the chaotic nature of his first term.
One of the goofier explanations given by those on the right was that nominating Rubio was actually a 5D chess move to get Rubio out of the Senate, which is apparently extremely necessary for some unexplained reason…? As opposed to Trumpian loyalists like Murkowski. It was just a silly idea altogether.
Why do I bring it up again? Well, because it might have actually worked! Just… on the wrong person. Trump nominated Gaetz for Attorney General, and Gaetz almost immediately resigned from the House when the news broke. This is a bit unusual, as most people stay in their seats until their confirmation is done. There was the looming release of an ethics report on Gaetz which will likely damage his reputation somewhat, so there’s a chance that Gaetz was always planning to resign, although I somewhat doubt it. In any case, Trump yanked the nomination when it was clear that there was bad press coming from it, and now Gaetz has said he won’t come back to Congress even though he probably technically could.
One might ask why Trump would want to get rid of Gaetz from the House. Well, Gaetz was instrumental in paralyzing Congress over the last term, so perhaps Trump wanted to avoid that. The issue with that explanation is that Gaetz is a fiercely pro-Trump, so it seems weird that Trump would promise something to an ally, and then leave them high and dry. The word “backfired” might be a more accurate description in such a case.
My guess is that Gaetz will probably come back to the Trump White House in some form that doesn’t require a Senate confirmation, after the news dies down.
I looked up the scandal on Wikipedia. He allegedly had sex with a 17 year old (who he claims he thought was 19)? That's what's made him radioactive? Is there anything else I'm missing? The wiki section for this says "UNDERAGE SEX TRAFFICKING" so I was expecting he was ordering 9-year Ukrainian war orphans to his house or something, but this really underwhelming. Technically a crime, yes, blah blah blah, but reminds me of the pearl clutching over Lewinsky.
I get that mores change and republicans have abandoned even the pretense of moral majority, but like 17 year old prostitution is not suprisingly scandalous. It’s not some made up woke shit. It’s what the whole Epstein island implication was… yesterday.
If one personally doesn’t find this scandalous, ok. But the performative surprise that others might is disingenuous
Epstein involved girls younger than that, in greater quantity, with elements of coercion, going unpunished, and potentially for the purpose of blackmail on behalf of a foreign nation. These are not comparable events.
an upcoming guy from a rich family gets elected as Seminole County Tax Collector who then gets women off of Sugar Baby websites paying them >$70,000, prints them fraudulent Florida driver's licenses listing them as >18, and then pays them to have sex with him and others, including perhaps a sitting Congressmen
looks like this could potentially be a blackmail operation also (although perhaps not on behalf of a foreign nation), but the guy doing it also engaged in a bunch of other ridiculous criminal behavior which landed with him being arrested for something else which is when the above was uncovered
I think there was a blackmail element no?
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/leaked-texts-from-israeli-consular-official-show-more-details-in-gaetz-levinson-funding-scheme/
https://archive.is/5jZtH
Admittedly I never looked into this deeply. I also distinctly recall some other politician coming forward when the Gaetz drama dropped, saying that something similar happened to him: he met someone, they had girls in the back of the car who were overly friendly, and he left because of the strange vibe. But I don’t remember who that was.
As far as I know, there was no blackmail element from Joel Greenberg himself.
There was other nonconnected blackmailers, though: a former prosecutor for the northern district of Florida by the name of David McGee and a former Intelligence officer for the military named Bob Kent got together and likely attempted to blackmail Gaetz's father. The scheme was Don Gaetz would give $25,000,000 to McGee and who would allegedly use this money to attempt a rescue operation on a long-lost CIA contractor named Bob Levinson and in exchange the two would use their contacts in the Biden admin to get a presidential pardon for Matt Gaetz's "looming" federal sex trafficking charges (which up to that point were secret). Don Gaetz immediately went to the local FBI and they got him to wear a wire to meet with David McGee. Luckily for the Gaetz family, Don refused to do anything without a written letter from the FBI detailing the purpose of the meeting, their agreement, and their cooperation.
Once the Gaetz family had that letter and went to the meeting with David McGee, shortly afterwards someone leaked the entire sex trafficking investigation to the NYT which led to Matt Gaetz giving one of the most bizarre television interviews ever. I also remember this causing a bit of a fallout with other politicians commenting, but I also don't remember who that was.
It looks like your links don't list Bob Levinson as a CIA contractor, but I believe his ties to the CIA (and maybe others) were leaked to the press in ~2013 in an attempt to pressure the Obama admin to get him back.
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