Note that this is literally just some random person on Bluesky posting this. Not a journalist and no link to anything.
I did a search for the quote and I have just found it repeated on social media, never with a link. But I think I might have found the origin.
It’s a comedy/satire account on Twitter.
This is why it’s a good thing to verify stuf.
Ok, so when will the report be released? Congress finished their business late last night/early this morning, correct? Or do they still have things to wrap up on Monday?
I saw earlier today that it is expected to be release tomorrow (Monday).
No doubt this will be an interesting Christmas week as a result.
CBS has the draft of the final report.
Those were among the findings of the long-running investigation by the House Ethics Committee into Gaetz, which concluded the former Florida congressman violated multiple state laws related to sexual misconduct while in office.
“The Committee determined there is substantial evidence that Representative Gaetz violated House Rules and other standards of conduct prohibiting prostitution, statutory rape, illicit drug use, impermissible gifts, special favors or privileges, and obstruction of Congress,” the 37-page report concludes.
The report gives fresh voice to allegations of misconduct that have circulated around Gaetz for years, in spite of his firm denials. It draws on testimony from witnesses who told the committee they were paid to have sex with Gaetz, text messages discussing the transactions, and Venmo and PayPal receipts.
Interesting, indeed.
Are the House Rules “You can do these things as long as you don’t get caught” or is that just a Republican thing?
I suspect that statutory rape is a line that most Reps avoid crossing. TPM article:
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/ethics-committee-report-gaetz-statutory-rape
Committee report:
Gaetz in a tweet via TPM:
“Giving funds to someone you are dating – that they didn’t ask for – and that isn’t ‘charged’ for sex is now prostitution?!?” Gaetz tweeted after news of the report’s contents began to emerge. “There is a reason they did this to me in a Christmas Eve-Eve report and not in a courtroom of any kind where I could present evidence and challenge witnesses.”
TPM:
One 21-year-old woman told the committee that she had been in contact with Gaetz about helping her with her tuition payments. Per the report, he told her to come to a hotel room so he could give her a check. When she arrived, Greenberg and a 20-year-old woman were there.
“The 21-year-old woman told the Committee there was an ‘expectation’ of a ‘sexual encounter,’” the report said. “The four of them had sex and afterwards Representative Gaetz gave her a $750 check made out to cash with ‘tuition reimbursement’ in the memo line, which she deposited the next day to help pay her tuition. The 21-year-old woman told the Committee she believed that the encounter ‘could potentially be a form of coercion because I really needed the money.’”
Committee report provides more context:
One of the women that Mr. Greenberg met on SeekingArrangement.com and introduced to Representative Gaetz in or around March 2017 became Representative Gaetz’s girlfriend, when he was almost 35 and she was 21 years old; their relationship continued for over two years. The relationship was not exclusive, and the Committee received evidence that Representative Gaetz’s then-girlfriend sometimes participated with him in sexual encounters with other women who were active on the website or otherwise involved in sex-for-money arrangements. The Committee also obtained text messages where she appeared to act as an intermediary between Representative Gaetz and the women he paid for sex. She herself was paid tens of thousands of dollars by Representative Gaetz over the course of their two-year relationship; she stated “Matt always paid for anything for me.” 63 However, she invoked her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination in response to several questions, including what the purpose of specific payments was, whether Representative Gaetz ever paid her money for sex, and whether she was aware of Representative Gaetz paying others for sex. She also invoked her Fifth Amendment privilege when asked to explain an increase in payments from Representative Gaetz in 2019, whether any of the payments from Representative Gaetz were related to drugs, and whether payments she received from Mr. Greenberg were related to Representative Gaetz.
I opine that this sounds like a relationship that is neither coercive nor especially healthy. To be fair the witness said the payments, “Could potentially be a form of coercion because I really needed the money,” which is a substantially different claim.
Back to TPM:
The report… found that “from 2017 to 2020, Representative Gaetz made tens of thousands of dollars in payments to women that the Committee determined were likely in connection with sexual activity and/or drug use.”
These, the report said, included a 17-year old girl — a felony violation of statutory rape laws in Florida, whether or not Gaetz knew her age at the time, the report notes.
Committee report, emphasis in original:
C. The Committee Found that Representative Gaetz Violated the House Gift Rule
There is substantial evidence that Representative Gaetz received impermissible gifts in connection with his travel to the Bahamas in September 2018. Specifically, Representative Gaetz accepted travel via a private plane and other travel costs. Contrary to Representative Gaetz’s claims that he provided “substantial” evidence to the Committee “demonstrating his innocence” on this allegation, he provided no evidence showing how he paid for any travel costs other than his flight to the Bahamas, despite being given multiple opportunities to do so.
Medical marijuana lobbyists apparently paid for the trip.
Back in the 90s, when I was trying out telephone dating lines, you’d sometimes end up talking to a woman who just wanted you to “help out” with some “unexpected expenses”. It was pretty obvious that these were offers of prostitution, and I’m not all that perceptive of a person.
He knew exactly what he was doing.
It’s legal because he didn’t write “hookers” in the memo field on the check.
Yeah really… considerations monetary and in kind were exchanged.
And of course the women are going to take the Fifth, they’re not dumb and they know they can be easily targeted while the likes of Gaetz have all these layers of protocol and ritual before anyone lays hands on him.
So how bad is all of this? Say the accused was a politician of your preferred party. Use this thought experiment to distinguish between bad appearances, condemnatory behavior, and firing offenses. Here are some scenarios:
Accused rep is a Democratic showboat, an effective advocate.
Accused rep is a Democratic showboat, one that causes problems for the party (this is most analogous to the Gaetz case).
Accused rep is a Democratic placeholder from a safe district, interchangeable with other Dems. This is the usual scenario for House corruption, because most districts are safe.
Accused rep is a policy-oriented workhorse, mostly fighting for things you believe in without getting enough credit.
If you’re like me, you don’t think prostitution or pot smoking are especially serious. Nor is having a 2-year bounce buddy for whom you send regular payments. The age difference raises eyebrows and Gaetz partied pretty hard for a representative of the American people. In cases 2 or 3, I’d say fork this guy.
Reps are supposed to obey the law, even laws that you don’t think are especially serious. Reps are also supposed to act in ways to avoid the appearance of impropriety. Among other reasons, you don’t want suspicions of crimes, even if they can’t be proven in court above a reasonable doubt. So there should be an ethical cushion.
Gaetz is accused of boffing a minor and paying her for it. That’s bad. It suggests recklessness and indifference to harm. In case #1, I would doubt whether the rep could remain an effective advocate. How I felt about it under case #4 might turn on how indifferent to harm I felt the rep to be. Maybe it was an ethical lapse. Or not. Echos of Chappaquiddick.
Gaetz is also credibly accused of corruption, accepting a trip to the Bahamas paid by industry lobbyists with active interests in Congress. Fork this guy under all 4 scenarios: you can’t trust him.
What gets me is the House Ethics Report never would have been released if Republicans didn’t hate Gaetz’s guts. Gaetz must have burned a lot of bridges and made many, many enemies within his own party.
In the interest of completeness, I should mention his connection to a felon named Joel Greenberg who was convicted of sex trafficking a child, among other charges.
Yes. And Gaetz was almost certainly going to run for office again, and use “I was in Congress” as a selling point. That would have devalued being in Congress (if that’s possible) and members want to stop him before he starts.
New tongue twister: Gits hate Gaetz guts, gets Gaetz gone.
There’s no scenario for me where this behavior isn’t predatory enough to get the boot. This goes beyond “consenting adults in the privacy of their own home,” assuming we set aside the statutory rape as unprovable.
Any normal person would lose a security clearance over this. That should be disqualifying for elected office, with limited exceptions.
Yeah, there’s different flavors of prostitution. This isn’t the acceptable one.
I expect Gaetz to quickly focus solely on the “charges were never filed, I was totally exonerated” defense and drop all this “paying girls is totally normal” spin. The latter is not a winning argument.
???
Statutory rape is illegal regardless of whether the male knows about the child’s age. So I don’t see why it’s improvable. Apparently there was a payment made. But I also don’t perceive that having sex with legal aged women first encountered through a website entitled SeekingArrangement dot com is especially predatory.
As far as security clearances are concerned, that to me depends upon what committees Gaetz was part of. His membership on the Judiciary Committee… wait, what? That may or may not create a security risk but I somehow doubt whether he’s the right guy to reform our nation’s vice laws. As for the other committee, the Committee on Armed Services, yeah there’s a security risk.
Sheesh, the GOP should have yanked his committee assignments ages ago. I guess being a Freedom Caucus jerk has its fringe benefits.
Kevin Drum provides a chart: the 17 years, 8 months minor received $400.
Obviously Gaetz is a sleazeball. On the other hand, the sex was apparently all consensual; the minor girl was 17 years 8 months old and never mentioned she was underage; the drugs were just the usual party pharmacopeia of the time; the alleged gift violation was a single trip to the Bahamas;² and he helped one of his girls get a passport.
I’m happy to see Gaetz gone, but honestly, I can’t get too worked up about this stuff.
I for one am not too worked up about this stuff. Following extensive calibration, I am worked up precisely the amount that I should be worked up.
Well again, remember that his partner in crime is now a convicted felon. But Gaetz isn’t, and it’s not because he wasn’t investigated. I’m giving the investigators the benefit of the doubt here that they didn’t think they could get a conviction, either for the trafficking or the statutory rape.