A thread to keep track of the twisted travails and trials that make up the life of Butthead Matt Gaetz; I’ll get things started with this:
Sure… that all seems likely.
ETA: Here’s WFLA’s 3:35 video piece on it:
That can’t be a real name.
Probably her stage name.
In other words, he fell for an advance fee scam. It’s literally one of the oldest kinds of wire fraud out there and one of the first things they teach you to watch out for when processing Western Union transactions.
I can’t say I’m surprised.
It really is. Her brother is Palmer Luckey, the guy who designed the Oculus Rift.
Sometimes real life is even more fucked up than fiction.
Frankly, he (her brother) is a lucky bastard, given that Facebook bought the company for two billion.
Stripper name.
I still can’t believe there’s anyone (regardless of their name) who actually wants to marry this putz.
He got Nigerian yachted?
Every time the conversation drifts into the territory of “hey, maybe Matt Gaetz isn’t actually the dumbest motherfucker in Congress,” he can be counted on to face-plant directly into the middle of the discussion and once again prove himself the proud wearer of the crown. It’s actually kind of impressive.
I believe he’s intentionally trying to further muddy the waters surrounding his legal issues. His spokes idiot used the same phrase “domestic and foreign actors” in describing that convoluted extortion scheme involving an ex felon, his father, and others to gain release of an ex fbi guy turned spy in Iran.
And ftr, I don’t believe he had any intention of really buying that sailboat.
My first thought was he was trying to hide money in anticipation of going on the run, or maybe bribing someone. "Oh noes! My millions of dollars have been absconded with by Evil People! The FBI certainly doesn’t need to investigate whether or not I can still access it!
Right?
Instead of waiting for the wedding, she ought to change her last name right now, to Afflicted With Questionable Decision-Making Skills…
In case you haven’t been following, here’s a recap of the Florida Men story so far!
A young entitled grifter named Joel Greenberg manages to get elected tax collector of Seminole county, and immediately uses the office as a platform for launching a one man crime wave.
At sone point, he enlists Matt “Baby” Gaetz as a confederate, in part by supplying him with underage hookers and drugs. But when Greenberg executed a Jacob Wohl style smear campaign against a political opponent he ended up with the FBI on his ass, and Dumb and Dumber’s drug-fueled teen orgies came to light. Greenberg immediately threw Gaetz under the bus.
Now Gaetz is the wastrel son of a Florida millionaire and prominent politician, hence the nickname “Baby Gaetz” - yes, people really call him that.
And when some of Don “Daddy” Gaetz’s long time Republican buddies heard about the plight of his son, they reached out and offered sound advice, sympathy and caring emotional support…just kidding, they’re Republicans so they tried to grift his ass. And they went big, they wanted 25 million dollars.
Back in 2007, a man named Robert Levinson, who may or may not have been an active federal agent, went missing in Iran. He’s presumed dead. But Daddy Gaetz’s buddies had a friend in China that knew someone in Russia with a friend in Iran that had seen Levinson alive, and told a friend in the Philippines all about it.
Sometimes, in complex white collar crimes, it’s really difficult for investigators to unwind the intricacies— but it’s way easier when the criminals write everything down.
And they did, because they had a fantasy to sell. In that fantasy, Daddy Don Gaetz would finance a private army to invade Iran and rescue Levinson behind the back of the US government. All they needed was 25 million dollars. If Daddy Gaetz put up the money, Matt “Baby” Gaetz could be the public face of this rescue!
In this fantasy, Matt Gaetz would be universally lauded for his heroism, Joe Biden would immediately give him a full pardon, Democrats and Republicans alike would hoist him on their soldiers and parade him around the nation while singing “He’s a Jolly Good Fellow”, and the DOJ would pass a special rule allowing him to take drugs and fuck teenagers with impunity so he could never get in trouble again. This despite the fact that the rescue had to be kept secret from the US government because they didn’t want Levinson rescued. The dissonance is staggering.
Or, alternatively - Gaetz’s friends might just keep Big Daddy’s 25 million in exchange for not telling the Washington Post about Beavis’s legal troubles.
I really think this ploy might’ve worked if not for Trump’s epic defeat, but I think the promise that Joe Biden had secretly agreed to pardon Gaetz strained the credulity of even the most gullible sucker. Seriously, I think these guys wrote out the secret plot when Trump was still in office, then just changed “Trump” to “Biden” after Trump lost. So Pops went to the FBI so he could get an aggrieved victim card to play.
Coincidentally, once Gaetz declined to purchase the 25 million dollar pardon, the story about Baby Gaetz fucking teenagers became public.
Now, back to Joel Greenberg, and back to Fall 2020. Greenberg went shopping for a Trump pardon, and he went to Roger Stone. Now Trump pardons are much cheaper than Biden pardons, much as dogs are cheaper than unicorns. (Not that you could really buy a unicorn, but if you’re pretending to have one to sell, you better set the price at around 25 million.)
Anyway, the going rate for Trump pardon from the Roger Stone franchise was $250,000 - plus a full written confession of all your crimes. And Greenberg, in the most mind-boggling act of stupidity in recorded history, agreed. He actually wrote out a full confession and gave it to Roger Stone. Now, I’m going to repeat this in case you didn’t absorb the full stupidity…someone actually wrote out a full confession of every illegal act they’d performed and paid Roger Stone a quarter million dollars to take it.
Needless to say, he didn’t get a pardon… apparently Stone never even tried.
The end result of all these machinations was…nothing. After all this, everyone was in exactly the same position as they were in beginning. Levinson still hasn’t been dramatically rescued. Greenberg remains unpardoned and is left with no option except to continue to roll over on Gaetz. Gaetz was left unpardoned with no option besides lying and denying and apparently…stealing a boat and blaming it on mysterious foreign actors. I’m pretty sure he thinks Robert Levinson is behind it, he’s probably mad about not being rescued. Or maybe Antifa did it.
All that grift for nothing, just a big circle of grifters grifting each other until everyone ends up with nothing more or less then they had when they started. That’s Republican Florida for you.
Louie Gohmert must be fuming
BTW, why is tax collector an elected position?
Well, “Empty” Greene and “Six-gun” Boebert are certainly giving him a run for the money but being wimmin folk I’m sure Gaetz discounts their efforts.
There’s also Andy Biggs, but I may be more sensitive to his shenanigans because I’m a quarter mile outside his district. Among other things he
- Bought into the Stop the Steal conspiracy early on
- Claimed the events of 1/6 were Antifa
- Refused to wear a mask when he was herded into a cloakroom during the incursion
- Was one of two representatives to vote against H.R. 6074
His two brothers have stated he should be removed from office.
Smart-ass answer: Because it’s Floriduh.
WAG answer: County Tax Assessor is a thing, and some counties call the person in charge of the bureaucracy that assesses and collects taxes on behalf of the the county the Tax Collector.
Sorry for the hijack. It just seems a boring administrative position with no reason why voters would care who is in the role. (Or people would want to elect the least competent person for the job, since they hate paying taxes.)
Then let’s go with Floriduh.