In the Age of Trump 2.0, Matt Gaetz Is Special
Can a Man Who Leaves a Paper Trail from a Crime Run the Justice Department?
About the only thing we don’t know about wannabe Attorney General Matt Gaetz's sex life is whether he’s circumcised or not. I know there are a gaggle of chucklefucks proposed for the next president’s administration, and I’ll get around to them over the next month or so. It’s just that Matt Gaetz is so special that he deserves extra attention.
It is certain that, in any other presidential administration, an individual who has been credibly accused of having sex with an underage girl, using illegal drugs, accepting prohibited gifts, misappropriation of campaign funds, and sharing sexual videos with people on the House floor, would be toast.
We’re coming soon into the age of Trump 2.0, however, and no precedents apply when it comes to stocking the government with accomplished liars, predators, and propagandists.
Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee have formally requested the FBI file on former Florida GOP Rep. Gaetz. In the letter, sent to FBI Director Christopher Wray requested the evidentiary file from law enforcement’s probe into whether Gaetz engaged in child sex trafficking.
“In order for the Senate to perform its constitutional duty in this instance, we must be able to thoroughly review all relevant materials that speak to the credibility of these serious allegations against Mr. Gaetz,” reads the letter,
Senate Republicans, according to Politico, have communicated concerns about how destructive a confirmation process could be to the White House. This far, the response has been that the president-elect would like them to “give Gaetz a shot.”
Early this morning, notably, Trump’s most important ally, Elon Musk, posted support for Gaetz on his X platform: “He is the Judge Dredd America needs to clean up a corrupt system and put powerful bad actors in prison. Gaetz will be our Hammer of Justice.” He added that the misconduct allegations amounted to “less than nothing.”
Despite the lobbying campaign, things are not looking peachy. Nearly a dozen Senate Republicans refused to say they’d back Gaetz when prodded by POLITICO last night. Those who are speaking aren’t being particularly kind.
“He’s got an uphill climb,” Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) told reporters.
The betting markets, according to CNN this morning are indicating there is only a 37% chance Gaetz will make it through the confirmation process. Despite all the bad publicity for Gaetz, the possibility remains that he could be running (or should I say ruining?) the Department of Justice. Republican Senators could bend the knee and approve the man, or Trump could utilize a constitutional loophole to make so-called recess appointments.
Given Gaetz’s taste for younger females, I’m sure he knows about recess appointments.
ABC News reported on documents showing the former Florida Congressman paid over $10,000 in 27 instances via Venmo to two women who were later witnesses in sexual misconduct probes conducted by both the House and the Justice Department.
Donald Trump's nominee for attorney general, former Rep. Matt Gaetz, allegedly paid for two women in 2019 to travel to New York to have sex, watch his appearance on Fox News, and attend the Broadway show "Pretty Woman," an attorney for the women told ABC News.
In an interview with ABC News' Juju Chang, Florida attorney Joel Leppard revealed new details regarding his clients' closed-door testimony before the private bipartisan committee -- including that his clients told congressional investigators that Gaetz paid for them to travel across state lines to have sex on at least two occasions.
The attorney also said that the women provided the committee with text messages they allegedly exchanged with Gaetz about the acquisition of drugs and payments that the attorney said were, in part, for sex.
In addition, the women provided the House Ethics Committee with selfies Gaetz is said to have sent them, according to their lawyer. They also testified that they sent nude photos to Gaetz, sometimes at his request.
As attorney general, Gaetz would be overseeing prosecutions for 18 U.S.C. § 2421, a federal felony punishable by up to 30 years in prison, making it illegal to transport someone across state or national borders for the purpose of having illegal sex, meaning sex acts with minors, rape, or prostitution.
Prior to its passage in the early 20th century, it was popularly called the Mann Act, also known as the White-Slave Traffic Act of 1910. It’s a statute (amended in 1978 & 1986) typically utilized to prosecute human traffickers, used often enough so that there are law firms advertising their expertise in this area.
This is relevant because Rep. Matt Gaetz was the lone no vote in both chambers of Congress against a law designed to combat human trafficking in 2017.
Famous persons charged under the act have been: Boxer Jack Johnson (convicted –it was a white woman– and pardoned in 2018 by President Trump), Frank Lloyd Wright (charges dropped), Evangelist Finneas Drake (convicted), Charlie Chaplin (acquitted), Charles Manson (charges dropped), mega-church pastor Jack Schaap (convicted), Recording artist/actor R. Kelly (convicted), and Jeffrey Epstein enabler Ghislane Maxwell (convicted).
I’m guessing that, having faced those types of charges (trips to the Bahamas have been referenced elsewhere) will give Gaetz valuable insight. He certainly didn’t know how incriminating it is to leave a paper trail after committing a crime.
The Trump nominee for law enforcement’s top job was actually stupid enough to write a check for $750 to a woman in exchange for sex.
Gaetz previously dismissed allegations that he paid for sex, saying that "someone is trying to recategorize my generosity to ex-girlfriends as something more untoward."
The list of bad things associated with the Attorney General nominee includes:
Former Florida State Rep. Chris Latvala (R) says Matt Gaetz "created a game where members of the FL House got 'points' for sleeping with aides, interns, lobbyists, and married legislators.
Gaetz thought it was a great idea before the 2022 midterms to say that women who were upset about Roe being overturned were all fat and ugly
Additional evidence that Merrick Garland was a terrible choice to run Biden’s Justice Department. He had all this evidence and did nothing. He had evidence on Donald Trump and took his sweet time before moving on it so that no Federal proceeding would be completed by 2024.
Here’s a good thing, should it happen, about this run-up to a confirmation process:
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene is threatening to reveal the secret sexual payoffs her Republican colleagues have made if they release the findings of the House ethics investigation. We can only hope she follows through and doesn’t get distracted by a Jewish Space Laser.
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Wednesday News to Peruse
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Musk is winning the White House and losing California by Alex Nieves at Politico:
Musk has made it clear, however, that he sees Tesla’s future as an autonomous ride hailing provider, competing against companies like Waymo. The company unveiled a prototype robotaxi called the Cybercab last month, which Musk predicted will be ready for service in California by next year. Much of Tesla’s massive valuation is based on the promise of AVs.
Ann Carlson, former head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration under President Joe Biden, said there’s little evidence to support that timeline. Tesla faces multiple recalls and investigations into its self-driving technology, including a criminal inquiry launched by NHTSA last month after a fatal crash.
“Musk has been promising for more than a decade that he was going to have fully autonomous vehicles on the road, and that hasn't happened,” Carlson said.
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Online retailers, birth control providers see spike in emergency contraceptives following elections by La’Nita Brooks at KSHB (Kansas - story refers to their metro area).
Planned Parenthood reported appointments for birth control implants increased 350% the day after elections. Vasectomy appointments increased by 1,200%. The nonprofit has also received an influx of calls inquiring about birth control options.
"Not only have we seen an increase in emergency contraceptives, but we also have more patients booking appointments for long-acting reversible contraceptives," said Wales. “Things like IUDs or Nexplanon implants. And patients generally want alternative forms of contraception because they provide longer-term planning."
Retailers are seeing a similar spike. Wisp, a sexual and reproductive telehealth company, said as of November 6th, emergency contraception sales were up almost 1,000%.
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All Life on Earth Today Descended From a Single Cell. Meet LUCA. by Jonathan Lambert at Quanta Magazine
“[LUCA] tells our own story,” said Edmund Moody, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Bristol. “It gives us a point from which we can look even further back.”
For half a century, biologists have focused on different kinds of physiological, genomic and fossil evidence to paint portraits of LUCA that sometimes clash dramatically. In 2024, Moody and a team of interdisciplinary researchers, including geologists, paleontologists, system modelers and phylogeneticists, combined their knowledge to build a probabilistic model that reconstructs modern life’s shared ancestor and estimates when it lived.
The analysis, published in Nature Ecology and Evolution in July, sketched a surprisingly complex picture of the cell. LUCA lived off hydrogen gas and carbon dioxide, boasted a genome as large as that of some modern bacteria, and already had a rudimentary immune system, according to the study. Its genomic complexity, the authors argue, suggests that LUCA was one of many lineages — the rest now extinct — living about 4.2 billion years ago, a turbulent time relatively early in Earth’s history and long thought too harsh for life to flourish.
