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@whiteflame
So you are familiar with theme?
Can you analyze HINT #1 about the "game itself'?
Fairy, where are you goingI will gather all the light and shine it on your tomorrowOh YEAH, can you hear this voice?
Oh YEAH, it's hoarse from shouting
Oh YEAH, it will last until your heart can hear it
Oh YEAH, Oh YEAHThe moon and the sun high-five
Didn't you forgot about something?
When you're not here to make me laugh
I can't find what I desireSnowing, be honest with yourself and smileWhen two people are getting closer, time overlapsFairy, where are you goingI will gather all the light and shine it on your tomorrowOh YEAH, feelings are floating on water's edgeIt is this season when orange changes into white way too soonOh YEAH, let's see this rainbow togetherIn memories seven colors are turning into snowHow strange, your smileMakes me feel a little strongerSnowing, I'm shivering alone, butYou're getting closer to wrap me upFairy, slowly but surelyYou're walking your way, hang in there!Laughing, you forgotten that you put me under spellYou changed everything with one single smile, my FairySnowing, be honest with yourself and smileWhen two people are getting closer, time overlapsFairy, where are you goingI will gather all light and shine it on youSnowing, be honest with yourself and smileBecause that smile was always with youSnowing FairyYou're giving all light that you have gathered and shoutSnow FairyDon't say goodbye
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oromagi
TOWN
Coal
Whiteflame
RationalMadman
iLikePie5
AWoL
Speedrace
Earth
Lunatic
FourTrouble
SCUM
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@RationalMadman
2. No roles will be given justifications relating to charactersThis is 100% untrue for my role and character, anyone else?
+1
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@coal
The PMs seem to be well thought out, though the theme is something I have no familiarity with.
Likewise, I have no familiarity with theme.
DP1 is what it is. We all know why.Let's try not to duck it up.
Minced cusses are the least sincere form of proanity
I want Oro's character and a paraphrase of the justification.VTL ORO
- Why me?
- I have already claimed more than you have
- I will trade my character claim for your character claim
- MOD said no roles would be given justifications related to character
- but I see a line drawn between my ROLE and one aspect of charachter
- Please advise whether you have a justification
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@Vader
YWWTT
devIANT muleskinner & clergyman
(ftf)
VTL SupaDudz
There is a direct correlation between MODS who fail to print the rules of the game in the first post and PLAYERS who fail to read the rules of the game. All MODS should print all relevant rules in earliest posts of at least the first DP instead of lazily making us go find another forum.
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I don't see any address of thett's topic here, which was IS POLITICAL BIAS a PHYSIOGNOMIC TRAIT?
PHYSIOGNOMY "is the practice of assessing a person's character or personality from their outer appearance—especially the face."
I'm fairly skeptical of most physiognomic theories.
The first question that occurs is how do we explain people who change political bias but not their physcial appearance?
- Reagan Democrats
- Reagan was a leftist for most of his life- even a Union President
- Obama Trumpists
- Trump has no discernible political principle but donated more money to Democratic causes for most of his life
- Lincoln Chaffee went from Republican to Independent to Democrat to Libertarian in the span of 10 years without once changing his physical traits.
- Reversely, I know of no reports of a facelift or dramatic weight loss that initiated a political change of heart.
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@n8nrgmi
I would say that Republicans began life as the most progressive political party in 1854 and generally increased in progressive qualities until Teddy Roosevelt split the progressives off from the Republicans in 1912. Progressives then caucused increasingly with the Democrats until Franklin Roosevelt sealed the (new) deal. Good arguments might be made that Eisenhower and/or Nixon were more progressive than Clinton, but the past century has generally demonstrated a marked, steady decline.
We should note that the Republican Party has failed to publish a platform since 2012 and officially refuses to tie itself to any political principle these days beyond the will to rule. In terms of actual legislation, Republicans have failed to offer any new solution or initiative on any subject since 2012 with the exception of the 2017 Tax Reform which was certainly the least progressive legislation in US history and is now estimated to have cost taxpayers $16 trillion by 2026.
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PROGRESSIVISM is a political philosophy in support of social reform. Based on the idea of progress in which advancements in science, technology, economic development and social organization are vital to the improvement of the human condition, progressivism became highly significant during the Age of Enlightenment in Europe, out of the belief that Europe was demonstrating that societies could progress in civility from uncivilized conditions to civilization through strengthening the basis of empirical knowledge as the foundation of society. Progressives take the view that progress is being stifled by vast economic inequality between the rich and the poor; minimally regulated laissez-faire capitalism with monopolistic corporations; and the intense and often violent conflict between those perceived to be privileged and unprivileged, arguing that measures were needed to address these problems.
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@coal
By now many of us have opinions on the the Derek Chauvin trial, which is understandable.Much media attention has been devoted to its coverage. It's probably the biggest trial since at least George Zimmerman. Probably since OJ Simpson, given the changing political climate in the United States.Will you accept the jury's verdict?Why or why not?
We haven't heard the defense's case yet but I call the evidence quite damning and the prosecution's case devastating. Assuming the defense does not change my mind, If Chauvin is exonerated of murder I will very likely attend some protest on the State Capitol lawn and probably little else beyond words. To the extent that resignation implies acceptance, I guess the answer is yes, I will accept the jury's verdict.
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Are there some examples of debates wherein the outcome was reversed by coaching or live tips?
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CAVEAT EMPTOR="buyer beware" but we are talking about electing a leader. Good leaders are neither bought nor dangerous to their electorate. I guess we're long past discussing whether Trump was any good as a leader- even the majority of Republican historians rank Trump dead last among presidents. But caveat emptor also suggests that the state has no remedy- let the buyer beware because the state can't or won' intervene. If Amazon.com were committing more credit card theft than any other entity for months in a row, then the criminal justice system would be brought to bear. Trump's campaign should be no exception. Audit that fucking pirate and make him refund all the rest of the hundreds of millions Trump stole from his most loyal supporters.
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rump was just the beginning
All told, the Trump and party operation raised $1.2 billion on WinRed, and refunded roughly 10 percent of it.
Whatever blowback it received, WinRed was not deterred. Soon after the November election ended, the two Republican Senate incumbents in Georgia, David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, deployed prechecked weekly recurring boxes in advance of their January runoffs.
Predictably, refund rates spiked.
Keith Millhouse, a transportation consultant in California, intended to donate once to Mr. Perdue, with the aim of keeping Republicans in control of the Senate. He wound up a recurring contributor and called the practice “repugnant” and “deceptive.”
“I’m busy like a lot of other people during this Covid era and I just wanted to get in, make a donation, get done and move on to what I needed to do next,” he said. “I thought I had done that. Then I find out that, you know, I’m getting these other charges.”
He canceled the repeating charge when he saw the reminder email. But by then WinRed had already processed his second $100 “bonus” contribution. He figured it was not worth the hassle to protest. “Don’t try to sucker it out of me,” he said.
In the final 2020 reporting period, from Nov. 24 through the end of the year, Mr. Perdue and Ms. Loeffler refunded $4.8 million to WinRed donors — more than triple the amount refunded by their Democratic rivals via ActBlue, even though the Democrats had raised far more money online. The refunds have stretched into 2021 and have been a source of frustration for the Loeffler campaign, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Now WinRed is exporting the tools it pioneered during the Trump re-election bid across the Republican Party, presaging a new normal for G.O.P. campaigns.
Today, the websites of various Republican Party committees and top congressional Republicans, including Representative Kevin McCarthy, the House minority leader, and Senator Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, include prechecked yellow boxes for multiple or recurring donations.
And after Mr. Trump’s first public speech of his post-presidency at the end of February, his new political operation sent its first text message to supporters since he left the White House. “Did you miss me?” he asked.
The message directed supporters to a WinRed donation page with two prechecked yellow boxes. Mr. Trump raised $3 million that day, according to an adviser, with more to come from the recurring donations in the months ahead.
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The ‘Gary and Gerrit’ operation
By last summer, the Biden campaign had begun outraising Mr. Trump’s team, and the president was hopping mad. For months, years even, his advisers had been telling him how he had built a one-of-a-kind financial juggernaut. So why, Mr. Trump demanded to know, was he off the television airwaves just months before the election in critical battleground states like Michigan?
“Where did all the money go?” he would lash out, according to two senior advisers.
Inside the Trump re-election headquarters in Northern Virginia, the pressure was building to wring ever more money out of his supporters.
Perhaps nowhere was that pressure more acute than on Mr. Trump’s expansive and lucrative digital operation. That was the unquestioned domain of Gary Coby, a 30-something strategist whose title — digital director — and microscopic public profile belied his immense influence on the Trump operation, especially online.
A veteran of the R.N.C. and the 2016 race, Mr. Coby had the confidence, trust and respect of Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, who unofficially oversaw the 2020 campaign, according to people familiar with the campaign’s operations. Mr. Kushner and the rest of the campaign leadership gave Mr. Coby, whose talents are recognized across the Republican digital industry, wide latitude to raise money however he saw fit.
That meant almost endless optimization and experimentation, sometimes pushing the traditional boundaries. The Trump team repeatedly used phantom donation matches and faux deadlines to loosen donor wallets (“1000% offer: ACTIVATED…For the NEXT HOUR”). Eventually it ratcheted up the volume of emails it sent until it was barraging supporters with an average of 15 per day for all of October and November 2020.
Mr. Coby, who declined an interview request for this article, outlined his philosophical approach when offering advice to other ambitious young strategists after he was named to the American Association of Political Consultants’ “40 under 40” list in 2017: “Asking for forgiveness is easier than permission.”
Mr. Coby’s partner in fund-raising was Mr. Lansing, the president of WinRed, which had been created in 2019 as a centralized platform for G.O.P. digital contributions after prominent Republicans feared they were falling irreparably behind Democrats and ActBlue.
The Trump and WinRed operations had been closely aligned since the platform’s inception — Mr. Trump reportedly helped come up with the firm’s name — and the president’s re-election operation amounted to a majority of all of WinRed’s business last cycle, when it processed more than $2 billion.
Inside the Trump orbit, “Gary and Gerrit” became something of a shorthand term for Mr. Coby and Mr. Lansing, according to multiple senior Trump campaign and White House officials.
The two strategists were already well acquainted: They had worked together at the R.N.C. in 2016, when Mr. Lansing oversaw its digital operations and Mr. Coby was the director of advertising. And they were business partners in Opn Sesame, a text messaging platform, which Mr. Lansing co-founded and served as chief operating officer for; WinRed said he stepped away from its day-to-day operations in early 2019.
Top Trump officials said they did not know specifically who had conceived of using the weekly recurring prechecked boxes — or who had designed them in the increasingly complex blizzard of text. But they said virtually all online fund-raising decisions were a “Gary and Gerrit” production.
“The campaigns determine their own fund-raising strategies and make their own decisions on how to use these tools,” Mr. Lansing said in WinRed’s statement.
Unlike ActBlue, which is a nonprofit, WinRed is a for-profit company. It makes its money by taking 30 cents of every donation, plus 3.8 percent of the amount given. WinRed was paid more than $118 million from federal committees the last election cycle; even after paying credit card fees and expenses like payroll and rent, the profits are believed to be significant.
WinRed even made money off donations that were refunded by keeping the fees it charged on each transaction, a practice it said was standard in the industry, citing PayPal; ActBlue said it does not keep fees for refunded donations. WinRed’s cut of the Trump operation’s refunds would amount to roughly $5 million before expenses. (Archived versions of WinRed’s website show it added a disclaimer saying it would keep its fees around when refunds surged.)
There is another reason Mr. Trump’s refund rates were so high: His campaign accepted millions of dollars above the legal cap, a problem exacerbated by recurring donations. A pianist in New York, for instance, contributed more than 100 times in the months leading up to Election Day, going far past the legal limit of $2,800. She was refunded $87,716.50 — three weeks after Election Day.
While every large-scale campaign winds up accepting and returning some donations above the legal limit, including Mr. Biden’s, the Trump situation stands out. Records show that Mr. Biden’s campaign committee issued roughly $47,000 in refunds larger than $5,000 after Election Day; Mr. Trump’s campaign issued more than $7 million.
Trump officials attributed the excessive donations to enthusiastic supporters and said the surge in postelection complaints was a result of losing the election, not of the recurring donation tactics.
The use of prechecked boxes is not unprecedented in politics, and WinRed said it was simply adopting tactics that ActBlue put in place years ago. ActBlue said in a statement that it had begun to phase out prechecked recurring boxes “unless groups were explicitly asking for recurring contributions.” Some prominent Democratic groups, including both congressional campaign committees, continue to precheck recurring boxes regardless of that guidance. Still, Democratic refund rates were only a small fraction of the Trump campaign’s last year.
Republicans widely hailed WinRed as one of the standout successes of the 2020 cycle, and in a memo last October the company declared itself the “trusted, recognizable platform” for Republican giving. “Scam PACs, shady operators and outright fraud is unfortunately a common occurrence in the online political donation world — particularly on the right,” the memo stated. “WinRed helps civilize the Wild West of the G.O.P. donation ecosystem.”
But for some Trump supporters like Ron Wilson, WinRed is a scam artist. Mr. Wilson, an 87-year-old retiree in Illinois, made a series of small contributions last fall that he thought would add up to about $200; by December, federal records show, WinRed and Mr. Trump’s committees had withdrawn more than 70 separate donations from Mr. Wilson worth roughly $2,300.
“Predatory!” Mr. Wilson said of WinRed. Like multiple other donors interviewed, though, he held Mr. Trump himself blameless, telling The Times, “I’m 100 percent loyal to Donald Trump.”
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A small yellow box and a flood of fraud complaints
The small and bright yellow box popped up on Mr. Trump’s digital donation portal around March 2020. The text was boldface, simple and straightforward: “Make this a monthly recurring donation.”
The box came prefilled with a check mark.
Even that was more aggressive than what the Biden campaign would do in 2020. Biden officials said they rarely used prechecked boxes to automatically have donations recur monthly or weekly; the exception was on landing pages where advertisements and emails had explicitly asked supporters to become repeat donors.
But for Mr. Trump, the prechecked monthly box was just the beginning.
By June, the campaign and the R.N.C. were experimenting with a second prechecked box, to default donors into making an additional contribution — called the money bomb. An early test arrived in the run-up to Mr. Trump’s birthday, June 14. The results were tantalizing: That date, a seemingly random Sunday, became the biggest day for online donations in the campaign’s history.
Ronna McDaniel, the R.N.C. chairwoman, crowed to Fox News about the achievement without mentioning how exactly the party had pulled it off. “Republicans are thinking smarter digitally,” she said, and were poised to “outwork, outdo, and outmaneuver the Democrats at every turn.”
The two prechecked yellow boxes would be a fixture for the rest of the campaign. And so would a much larger volume of refunds.
Until then, the Biden and Trump operations had nearly identical refund rates on WinRed and ActBlue in 2020: 2.18 percent for Mr. Trump and 2.17 percent for Mr. Biden.
But from the day after Mr. Trump’s birthday through the rest of the year, Mr. Biden’s refund rate remained nearly flat, at 2.24 percent, while Mr. Trump’s soared to 12.29 percent.
In early September — just after learning that it had been outraised by the Biden operation in August by more than $150 million — the Trump campaign became even more aggressive.
It changed the language in the first yellow box to withdraw recurring donations every week instead of every month. Suddenly, some contributors were unwittingly making as many as half a dozen donations in 30 days: the intended contribution, the “money bomb” and four more weekly withdrawals.
“You don’t realize it until after everything is already in motion,” said Bruce Turner, 72, of Gilbert, Ariz., whose wife’s $1,000 donation in early October became $6,000 by Election Day. They were refunded $5,000 the week after the election, records show.
Around the same time, officials who fielded fraud claims at bank and credit card companies noticed a surge in complaints against the Trump campaign and WinRed.
“It started to go absolutely wild,” said one fraud investigator with Wells Fargo. “It just became a pattern,” said another at Capital One. A consumer representative for USAA, which primarily serves military families, recalled an older veteran who discovered repeated WinRed charges from donating to Mr. Trump only after calling to have his balance read to him by phone.
The unintended payments busted credit card limits. Some donors canceled their cards to avoid recurring payments. Others paid overdraft fees to their bank.
All the banking officials said they recalled only a negligible number of complaints against ActBlue, the Democratic donation platform, although there are online review sites that feature heated complaints about unwanted charges and customer service.
The Trump operation was not done modifying the yellow boxes. Soon, the fact that donations would be withdrawn weekly was taken out of boldface type, according to archived versions of the president’s website, and moved beneath other bold text.
As the campaign’s financial problems became increasingly acute, the yellow boxes became dizzyingly more complex.
By October there were sometimes nine lines of boldface text — with ALL-CAPS words sprinkled in — before the disclosure that there would be weekly withdrawals. As many as eight more lines of boldface text came before the second additional donation disclaimer.
Even political professionals fell prey to the boxes.
Jeff Kropf, the executive director of the Oregon Capitol Watch Foundation, a conservative group, said he had been “very careful” to uncheck recurring boxes — yet he missed the “money bomb” and got a second charge anyway.
“Until WinRed fixes their sneaky way of adding additional contributions to credit cards like they did to me, I won’t use them again,” he said.
Mr. Brignull, the user-experience designer who also serves as an expert witness in legal cases involving misleading advertising, noted that a Consumer Rights Directive in Europe prohibits companies from deploying a defaulted opt-in tactic for recurring payments.
“It is very easy for the eye to skip over,” he said. “The only really meaningful information in that box is buried.”
Banks and credit card companies were inundated with fraud complaints last fall from the president’s supporters about donations they had not intended to make.
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HOW TRUMP STEERED SUPPORTERS into UNWITTING DONATIONS
- Online donors were guided into weekly recurring contributions. Demands for refunds spiked.
- Complaints to banks and credit card companies soared.
- But the money helped keep Donald Trump’s struggling campaign afloat.
By Shane Goldmacher
Stacy Blatt was in hospice care last September listening to Rush Limbaugh’s dire warnings about how badly Donald J. Trump’s campaign needed money when he went online and chipped in everything he could: $500.
It was a big sum for a 63-year-old battling cancer and living in Kansas City on less than $1,000 per month. But that single contribution — federal records show it was his first ever — quickly multiplied. Another $500 was withdrawn the next day, then $500 the next week and every week through mid-October, without his knowledge — until Mr. Blatt’s bank account had been depleted and frozen. When his utility and rent payments bounced, he called his brother, Russell, for help.
What the Blatts soon discovered was $3,000 in withdrawals by the Trump campaign in less than 30 days. They called their bank and said they thought they were victims of fraud.
“It felt,” Russell said, “like it was a scam.”
But what the Blatts believed was duplicity was actually an intentional scheme to boost revenues by the Trump campaign and the for-profit company that processed its online donations, WinRed. Facing a cash crunch and getting badly outspent by the Democrats, the campaign had begun last September to set up recurring donations by default for online donors, for every week until the election.
Contributors had to wade through a fine-print disclaimer and manually uncheck a box to opt out.
As the election neared, the Trump team made that disclaimer increasingly opaque, an investigation by The New York Times showed. It introduced a second prechecked box, known internally as a “money bomb,” that doubled a person’s contribution. Eventually its solicitations featured lines of text in bold and capital letters that overwhelmed the opt-out language.
The tactic ensnared scores of unsuspecting Trump loyalists — retirees, military veterans, nurses and even experienced political operatives. Soon, banks and credit card companies were inundated with fraud complaints from the president’s own supporters about donations they had not intended to make, sometimes for thousands of dollars.
“Bandits!” said Victor Amelino, a 78-year-old Californian, who made a $990 online donation to Mr. Trump in early September via WinRed. It recurred seven more times — adding up to almost $8,000. “I’m retired. I can’t afford to pay all that damn money.”
The sheer magnitude of the money involved is staggering for politics. In the final two and a half months of 2020, the Trump campaign, the Republican National Committee and their shared accounts issued more than 530,000 refunds worth $64.3 million to online donors. All campaigns make refunds for various reasons, including to people who give more than the legal limit. But the sum the Trump operation refunded dwarfed that of Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s campaign and his equivalent Democratic committees, which made 37,000 online refunds totaling $5.6 million in that time.
The recurring donations swelled Mr. Trump’s treasury in September and October, just as his finances were deteriorating. He was then able to use tens of millions of dollars he raised after the election, under the guise of fighting his unfounded fraud claims, to help cover the refunds he owed.
In effect, the money that Mr. Trump eventually had to refund amounted to an interest-free loan from unwitting supporters at the most important juncture of the 2020 race.
Marketers have long used ruses like prechecked boxes to steer American consumers into unwanted purchases, like magazine subscriptions. But consumer advocates said deploying the practice on voters in the heat of a presidential campaign — at such volume and with withdrawals every week — had much more serious ramifications.
“It’s unfair, it’s unethical and it’s inappropriate,” said Ira Rheingold, the executive director of the National Association of Consumer Advocates.
Harry Brignull, a user-experience designer in London who coined the term “dark patterns” for manipulative digital marketing practices, said the Trump team’s techniques were a classic of the “deceptive design” genre.
“It should be in textbooks of what you shouldn’t do,” he said.
Political strategists, digital operatives and campaign finance experts said they could not recall ever seeing refunds at such a scale. Mr. Trump, the R.N.C. and their shared accounts refunded far more money to online donors in the last election cycle than every federal Democratic candidate and committee in the country combined.
Over all, the Trump operation refunded 10.7 percent of the money it raised on WinRed in 2020; the Biden operation’s refund rate on ActBlue, the parallel Democratic online donation-processing platform, was 2.2 percent, federal records show.
Several bank representatives who fielded fraud claims directly from consumers estimated that WinRed cases, at their peak, represented as much as 1 to 3 percent of their workload. An executive for one of the nation’s larger credit-card issuers confirmed that WinRed at its height accounted for a similar percentage of its formal disputes.
That figure may seem small at first glance, but financial experts said it was a shockingly large percentage, considering that political donations represent a tiny fraction of the overall United States economy.
In its investigation, The Times reviewed filings with the Federal Election Commission from the Trump and Biden campaigns and their shared accounts with political parties, as well as the donation-processing sites ActBlue and WinRed, compiling a database of refunds issued by day. The Times also interviewed two dozen Trump donors who made recurring donations, as well as campaign officials, campaign finance experts and consumer advocates. Nearly a dozen bank and credit card officials from the nation’s leading financial institutions spoke for this article on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters.
A clear pattern emerged. Donors typically said they intended to give once or twice and only later discovered on their bank statements and credit card bills that they were donating over and over again. Some, like Mr. Blatt, who died of cancer in February, sought an injunction from their banks and credit cards. Others pursued refunds directly from WinRed, which typically granted them to avoid more costly formal disputes.
WinRed said that every donor receives at least one follow-up email about pending repeat donations in advance and that the company makes it “exceptionally easy,” with 24-hour customer service, for people to request their money back. “WinRed wants donors to be happy, and puts a premium on customer support,” said Gerrit Lansing, WinRed’s president. “Donors are the lifeblood of G.O.P. campaigns.” He noted that Democrats and ActBlue had also used recurring programs.
Jason Miller, a spokesman for Mr. Trump, downplayed the rash of fraud complaints and the $122.7 million in total refunds issued by the Trump operation. He said internal records showed that 0.87 percent of its WinRed transactions had been subject to formal credit card disputes. “The fact we had a dispute rate of less than 1 percent of total donations despite raising more grass-roots money than any campaign in history is remarkable,” he said.
That still amounts to about 200,000 disputed transactions that Mr. Miller said added up to $19.7 million.
“Our campaign was built by the hardworking men and women of America,” Mr. Miller said, “and cherishing their investments was paramount to anything else we did.”
Asked if Mr. Trump had been aware of his operation’s use of recurring payments, the campaign did not respond.
Mr. Trump’s hyperaggressive fund-raising practices did not stop once he lost the election. His campaign continued the weekly withdrawals through prechecked boxes all the way through Dec. 14 as he raised tens of millions of dollars for his new political action committee, Save America.
In March, Mr. Trump urged his followers to send their money to him — and not to the traditional party apparatus — making plain that he intends to remain the gravitational center of Republican fund-raising online.
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Mar 30, 2021
Matt Gaetz Interview Transcript on Sex Trafficking Allegations
Rep. Matt Gaetz went on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show on March 30 to respond to allegations of sex trafficking. The New York Times reported that the Justice Department is investigating Gaetz “over whether he had a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old and paid for her to travel with him.” Gaetz denied the allegations and says there was an extortion attempt. Read the transcript here.
Tucker Carlson: (00:00)
Just a couple of hours ago, late this afternoon, the New York Times ran a story saying that Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz is under federal investigation for playing some role in sex trafficking and potentially having a relationship with a 17 year old girl. There are very few details in major news outlets tonight about this story. We have no background on at all and not even any very informed questions. Instead, we’ve invited Congressman Gaetz on the show to respond to these stories and give us his view of them. Congressman, thanks so much for coming on. Appreciate it. So, this is obviously a serious allegation. Tell us what the truth is from your perspective.
Matt Gaetz: (00:41)
It is a horrible allegation and it is a lie. The New York Times is running a story that I have traveled with a 17 year old woman and that is verifiably false. People can look at my travel records and see that that is not the case. What is happening is an extortion of me and my family involving a former Department of Justice official. On March 16th my father got a text message demanding a meeting, wherein a person demanded $25 million in exchange for making horrible sex trafficking allegations against me go away. Our family was so troubled by that we went to the local FBI and the FBI and the Department of Justice were so concerned about this attempted extortion of a member of Congress that they asked my dad to wear a wire, which he did with the former Department of Justice official. Tonight I am demanding that the Department of Justice and the FBI release the audio recordings that were made under their supervision and at their direction, which will prove my innocence.
Matt Gaetz: (01:44)
And that will show that these allegations aren’t true. They’re merely intended to try to bleed my family out of money. And 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. 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.
Tucker Carlson: (02:25)
So, a couple of obvious questions that come to mind. And again, just to restate this just happened. Don’t have any other information beyond what we’ve already said and you have said. First of all, who is this Department of Justice former employee who’s trying to extort the money from you, you say?
Matt Gaetz: (02:39)
His name is David McGee. He was a top official in the leadership in the Northern district of Florida as a prosecutor. He currently works at the Beggs & Lane law firm. As a matter of fact, one of the recordings that was made at the FBI and Department of Justice request occurred at that law firm and the money that was supposed to be paid today, that would have shown even more evidence of David McGee’s work in this extortion scheme. That was foiled by the New York Times story and I believe that’s why this horrible information and these terrible allegations have been used this evening.
Tucker Carlson: (03:14)
So, I’ll get the investigation in a sec, but you’re saying that David McGee was motivated by greed. He was trying to extort money from your family. That’s his motivation you’re saying.
Matt Gaetz: (03:27)
I know that there was a demand for money in exchange for a commitment that he could make this investigation go away along with his co-conspirators. They even claim to have specific connections inside the Biden white house. Now, I don’t know if that’s true. They were promising that Joe Biden would pardon me. Obviously I don’t need a pardon. I’m not seeking a pardon. I’ve not done anything improper or wrong, but what I am troubled by is the real motivation for all of this. Just tonight Ted Lieu, a Democrat, is calling on me to be removed from the house judiciary committee. And I believe we are in an era of our politics now Tucker, where people are smeared to try to take them out of the conversation.
Matt Gaetz: (04:08)
I’m not the only person on screen right now who has been falsely accused of a terrible sex act. You were accused of something that you did not do. And so, you know what this feels like, the pain that can bring to your family and you know how it just puts people on defense when you’re accused of something, so salacious and awful. But it did not happen. It is not true. And the fact that it is the basis of this attempt to extort my family, tells a lot. And if the FBI and Department of Justice will release the tapes that they are in possession of, the American people will see what is really going on.
Tucker Carlson: (04:41)
You just referred to a mentally ill viewer who accused me of a sex crime 20 years ago. And of course it was not true, I’d never met the person. But I do agree with you that being accused falsely is one of the worst things that can happen. And you do see it a lot. Let’s go back to the investigation. You say that it was or is underway, there was an investigation. What is the basis of that investigation? What is the allegation? That really not very clear from these news stories?
Matt Gaetz: (05:10)
Yeah. Again I only know what I’ve read in the New York Times. I can say that actually you and I went to dinner about two years ago, your wife was there and I brought a friend of mine. You’ll remember her. And she was actually threatened by the FBI, told that if she wouldn’t cop to the fact that somehow I was involved in some pay for play scheme, that she could face trouble. And so, I do believe that there are people at the Department of Justice who are trying to smear me. Providing for flights and hotel rooms for people that you’re dating who are of legal age is not a crime. And I’m just troubled that the lack of any sort of legitimate investigation into me would then permute would then convert into this extortion attempt.
Tucker Carlson: (05:58)
I don’t remember the woman you’re speaking of or the context at all, honestly, but I would like to know who… So, they’re saying there is a 17 year old girl who you had a relationship with. Is that true? And who is this girl? What are they talking about the New York Times?
Matt Gaetz: (06:14)
The person doesn’t exist. I have not had a relationship with a 17 year old. That is totally false. The allegation I read in the New York Times is that I’ve traveled with some 17 year old in some relationship. That is false and records will bear that out to be false.
Tucker Carlson: (06:30)
How long has this investigation been going on? Do you know?
Matt Gaetz: (06:34)
I don’t know.
Tucker Carlson: (06:36)
When were you first informed of it?
Matt Gaetz: (06:39)
Again, I really saw this as a deeply troubling challenge for my family on March 16th when people were talking about a minor and that there were pictures of me with child prostitutes. That’s obviously false. There will be no such pictures because no such thing happened. But really on March 16th was when this got going from the extortion standpoint.
Tucker Carlson: (07:05)
So, what happens next? I mean you can see there is this investigation, I guess a criminal investigation. I’m not quite sure what the sex trafficking part comes in. I don’t again for the fifth time, I don’t really understand this story very well. But where does it go from here? I mean you’ve made an allegation against someone by name on the air and accused him of trying to extort millions of dollars from your family. What what happens tomorrow?
Matt Gaetz: (07:28)
Well what was supposed to happen was the transfer of this money that would have implicated the former colleague of these current DOJ officials. But that’s obviously not going to happen tomorrow because the New York Times story was leaked in order to quell that investigative effort. So, here’s what needs to happen next. The FBI and the Department of Justice must release the tapes that are in their possession, that were done at their direction. Those tapes will show that I am innocent and that the whole concept of sex charges against me was really just a way to try to bleed my family out of money and probably smear my name because I am a well-known outspoken, conservative, and I guess that’s out of style in a lot of parts of the country right now.
Tucker Carlson: (08:12)
Matt Gaetz, I appreciate your coming on tonight.
Matt Gaetz: (08:14)
Thanks for giving me the chance to tell the truth. I appreciate it.
Tucker Carlson: (08:17)
It’s a more interesting and complicated story than that I knew from reading about it. Thank you very much. Matt Gaetz interview, that was one of the weirdest interviews I’ve ever conducted. That story just appeared in the news a couple of hours ago and on the certainty that there’s always more than you read in the newspaper we immediately called Matt Gaetz and asked him to come on and tell us more, which is you saw he did. I don’t think that clarified much but it certainly showed this as a deeply interesting story and we’ll be following it. Don’t quite understand it but we’ll bring you more when we find out.
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JOEL GREENBERG CLAIMED to HAVE EXPLOSIVES DURING HOURS-LONG NEGOTIATION, RECORDS SAY
The former Seminole County tax collector made suicidal comments, “stating at various times that he would take pills, utilize firearms, and that he had improvised explosive devices,” a report said.
By Jeff Weiner Orlando Sentinel (TNS)
ORLANDO — Former Seminole County tax collector Joel Greenberg claimed to have explosive devices and threatened to harm himself while negotiating his surrender with deputy sheriffs in early March, which delayed for hours his arrest for violating his bond conditions, newly released records state.
In an incident report, Seminole County Deputy Jerome Grunat wrote that when he arrived at Greenberg’s home in Heathrow about 9:20 p.m. on March 2, the former county tax collector initially said via phone that he would exit his home “after a short period of time,” but that time came and went.
During subsequent phone negotiations, Greenberg made suicidal comments, “stating at various times that he would take pills, utilize firearms, and that he had improvised explosive devices,” Grunat wrote.
The deputy described erratic behavior by Greenberg, who at one point opened his front door, threw a bag of medication onto the driveway, then retreated back inside, according to the report. Greenberg later surrendered after “several hours of negotiation,” the report said.
The document, which was first reported by WFTV-TV, sheds new light on Greenberg’s behavior at the time of his arrest.
Though he was taken to a hospital for medical evaluation after making suicide threats, the Sheriff’s Office confirmed he was not placed under Florida’s Baker Act, which allows for a person who is determined to be a threat to themselves or others to be temporarily admitted for mental health assessment.
After being evaluated, Greenberg was booked into the Seminole County jail, agency spokesperson Kim Cannaday confirmed.
Asked whether Greenberg’s home was searched for explosive devices or other weapons, Cannaday said deputies were only there to assist U.S. Marshals with taking Greenberg into custody. The report did not indicate that Greenberg had threatened anyone.
The U.S. Marshals Office of Public Affairs did not immediately return a call seeking more information.
Greenberg is currently in the Orange County Jail as he awaits trial on 33 federal charges, including stalking, identity theft, wire fraud, bribery, theft of government property, conspiracy to bribe a public official, creating fake IDs and sex trafficking of a minor.
The case has drawn national attention after it was reported last week by The New York Times that the investigation of Greenberg had led federal authorities to also target U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz, a Florida Republican and prominent ally of former President Donald Trump, for potential sex trafficking offenses. Gaetz denies all wrongdoing.
Greenberg was initially released on bond after his arrest in June but was jailed in early March after authorities said he violated his conditions of release by driving to South Florida to look for his wife.
Greenberg left his Heathrow home just before 5 a.m. Feb. 28 and drove to his mother-in-law’s condo in Jupiter in search of Abby Greenberg, according to a police report. At the time, he was under an 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew and not allowed to travel outside the Middle District of Florida, which stretches across the state from the Fort Myers area to Jacksonville.
His mother-in-law later called police to say that Greenberg had shown up uninvited and asked that he be removed, the report said.
Abby Greenberg, who was not at her mother’s home at the time, told police that she left the couple’s Seminole County home to “take a break from the stressful situation with Joel,” the report said. She added that Greenberg tracked her using her Snapchat social media account.
A background check revealed to Jupiter police that Greenberg was under federal probation. An officer didn’t arrest Greenberg on the spot, however, because he was unable to reach Greenberg’s probation officer to determine if he was allowed to travel to Jupiter.
The documents released by the Sheriff’s Office Tuesday also revealed another brush with law enforcement by Joel Greenberg, this one in November.
Deputies were called to a disturbance at the couple’s home late Nov. 13, a report states, after an argument between them in which Joel Greenberg falsely accused his wife of assaulting him. Home security footage showed that she had not hit him, the report said.
Greenberg was reportedly calm while interacting with deputies and said he’d considered calling Seminole Sheriff Dennis Lemma about the incident but decided against it. Deputies determined no crime had occurred.
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MATT GAETZ, LOYAL for YEARS to TRUMP, is SAID to HAVE SOUGHT a BLANKET PARDON
The congressman was at the time under investigation over whether he violated sex trafficking laws, though it was unclear what he knew of the inquiry.
By Michael S. Schmidt, Maggie Haberman and Nicholas Fandos
Representative Matt Gaetz, Republican of Florida, was one of President Donald J. Trump’s most vocal allies during his term, publicly pledging loyalty and even signing a letter nominating the president for the Nobel Peace Prize.
In the final weeks of Mr. Trump’s term, Mr. Gaetz sought something in return. He privately asked the White House for blanket pre-emptive pardons for himself and unidentified congressional allies for any crimes they may have committed, according to two people told of the discussions.
Around that time, Mr. Gaetz was also publicly calling for broad pardons from Mr. Trump to thwart what he termed the “bloodlust” of their political opponents. But Justice Department investigators had begun questioning Mr. Gaetz’s associates about his conduct, including whether he had a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old that violated sex trafficking laws, in an inquiry that grew out of the case of an indicted associate in Florida.
It was unclear whether Mr. Gaetz or the White House knew at the time about the inquiry, or who else he sought pardons for. Mr. Gaetz did not tell White House aides that he was under investigation for potential sex trafficking violations when he made the request. But top White House lawyers and officials viewed the request for a pre-emptive pardon as a nonstarter that would set a bad precedent, the people said.
Aides told Mr. Trump of the request, though it is unclear whether Mr. Gaetz discussed the matter directly with the president. Mr. Trump ultimately pardoned dozens of allies and others in the final months of his presidency, highlighting his willingness to wield his power to help close supporters and lash out against the criminal justice system.
In recent days, some Trump associates have speculated that Mr. Gaetz’s request for a group pardon was an attempt to camouflage his own potential criminal exposure.
Either way, Mr. Gaetz’s appeal to the Trump White House shows how the third-term congressman sought to leverage an unlikely presidential relationship he had spent years cultivating.
Few Republicans in Congress became more closely associated with Mr. Trump during his presidency than Mr. Gaetz. Though he had initially supported his fellow Floridian Jeb Bush in the 2016 Republican primary race, Mr. Gaetz latched his political fortunes to Mr. Trump during the campaign and found stardom in the Republican Party, becoming one of Mr. Trump’s greatest defenders.
This account of Mr. Gaetz’s dealings with the Trump White House is based on interviews with four people briefed on the exchanges about his pardon request and other Trump confidants. A spokesman for Mr. Trump declined to comment.
Mr. Gaetz has denied having sex with a 17-year-old or paying for sex. A spokesman denied that he privately requested a pardon in connection with the continuing Justice Department inquiry.
“Entry-level political operatives have conflated a pardon call from Representative Gaetz — where he called for President Trump to pardon ‘everyone from himself, to his administration, to Joe Exotic’ — with these false and increasingly bizarre, partisan allegations against him,” the spokesman said in a statement. “Those comments have been on the record for some time, and President Trump even retweeted the congressman, who tweeted them out himself.”
Though Mr. Gaetz had little formal power in the House, where he remains a backbencher, he offered Mr. Trump what he craved and what Republican congressional leaders would not always offer: fierce loyalty and a taste for bare-knuckle political combat.
In his memoir published last fall, “Firebrand: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the MAGA Revolution,” Mr. Gaetz recalled his first one-on-one phone call with the president in late 2017. Mr. Trump had seen Mr. Gaetz on Fox News attacking Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel, and thought he had heard an ally.
“I need warriors, you know what I mean?” the president told him.
Mr. Gaetz knew precisely. Though he came from the more conservative Florida Panhandle, the young congressman shared Mr. Trump’s taste for boasts, particularly about sexual exploits, and a knack for self-promotion. Neither was particularly impressed by the trappings of traditional power in Washington, and both were sons of powerful men.
Mr. Gaetz’s father, Don Gaetz, was the president of the Florida Senate and a wealthy businessman, and Mr. Trump’s father a successful real estate developer in New York.
After Democrats took back the House in 2018 and began cranking up pressure on the Trump administration, Mr. Gaetz emerged as a standout in what he called the “warrior class” of lawmakers who made it their mission to protect the president.
“The president has called me when I was in my car, asleep in the middle of the night on my Longworth Office cot, on the throne, on airplanes, in nightclubs, and even in the throes of passion (yes, I answered),” Mr. Gaetz boasted in his book.
When Democrats called Michael D. Cohen, the president’s former fixer, to testify against him in early 2019, Mr. Gaetz threatened to reveal what he said were extramarital affairs by Mr. Cohen. Democrats accused him of witness intimidation and the Florida Bar, of which Mr. Gaetz is a member, investigated.
Mr. Gaetz brought the first impeachment investigation into Mr. Trump, later that year, to a halt, albeit briefly, when he led dozens of Republican lawmakers into investigative hearing rooms and refused to leave.
Mr. Trump publicly singled out Mr. Gaetz, saying he was a “great talent, young, handsome,” thanking him for his advocacy on the president’s behalf and predicting Mr. Gaetz was “going places.”
Mr. Gaetz’s rise caught the Republican establishment off guard.
“He was not on people’s radar until he started showing up next to Trump at rallies,” said Alex Conant, a Republican political strategist and a former senior aide to Senator Marco Rubio of Florida.
“The president would see him on Fox, defending the president, which was a good way to get close to the Trump White House,” Mr. Conant added. “A lot of members tried to do that. Matt Gaetz did exceptionally well.”
The Justice Department is investigating whether Representative Matt Gaetz, Republican of Florida, broke federal sex trafficking laws.
- Mr. Gaetz, 38, was elected to Congress in 2016 and became one of President Donald J. Trump’s most outspoken advocates. The inquiry focuses on the representative’s relationships with women recruited online for sex and whether he had sex with a 17-year-old girl.
- The investigation includes an examination of payments to women. Investigators believe that he paid for sex with a number of women he met through Joel Greenberg — a former Florida tax collector who was indicted last year on a federal sex trafficking charge, among other offenses — people close to the investigation told The New York Times.
- Mr. Gaetz has repeatedly dismissed the investigation as politically motivated and unfounded, defending his past relationships with women. So far, he has not been charged and the extent of his criminal exposure remains unclear. The investigation is continuing.
- The representative has claimed that his family is being targeted by two men trying to extort it for $25 million in exchange for making potential legal problems “go away.” The men have denied that they were trying to extort the Gaetzes.
- Mr. Gaetz told The Times that he had no plans to resign from Congress. But as the investigation continues, he could face pressure either to step down or temporarily relinquish his spot on the House committee that oversees the Justice Department.
- Mr. Gaetz, 38, was elected to Congress in 2016 and became one of President Donald J. Trump’s most outspoken advocates. The inquiry focuses on the representative’s relationships with women recruited online for sex and whether he had sex with a 17-year-old girl.
Mr. Gaetz embraced his role after the president lost last year’s election, trying to discredit the result and overturn it in Congress. He also privately and publicly attacked Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming, a leading Republican critic of Mr. Trump’s incitement of the Capitol rioters.
But by then, federal investigators were asking witnesses about Mr. Gaetz’s ties to a 17-year-old girl whom investigators believed had sex with Mr. Gaetz and was paid, people close to the investigation have said. The interviews grew out of a case the Justice Department began making last summer against a local Florida tax collector who has been indicted on a range of charges, including sex trafficking of a minor. He has pleaded not guilty and is set to go to trial this year.
Two weeks after Mr. Trump lost re-election, Mr. Gaetz called on him to “pardon everyone” before he left office or they would be targeted by the “radical left.”
“He should pardon the Thanksgiving turkey,” Mr. Gaetz said of Mr. Trump on Fox News. “He should pardon everyone from himself to his administration officials to Joe Exotic if he has to,” Mr. Gaetz added, referring to the gun-toting zoo owner in the Netflix series “Tiger King” who was convicted in a murder-for-hire plot.
Mr. Gaetz added: “You see from the radical left a bloodlust that will only be quenched if they come after the people who worked so hard to animate the Trump administration with the policies and the vigor and the effectiveness that delivered for the American people.” He later tweeted the clip.
Shortly after Mr. Trump left office, Mr. Gaetz publicly floated the idea of quitting Congress to defend Mr. Trump in impeachment, but Mr. Trump’s advisers showed no interest.
Since the existence of the investigation was publicly revealed last week, Mr. Trump and his close allies have mostly remained silent. Mr. Trump’s advisers have urged him to stay quiet and sought to distance the former president from Mr. Gaetz.
Though Mr. Trump wielded his clemency power in self-serving ways unlike any other president, a blanket pardon for Mr. Gaetz would have stood out because it failed to specify the crimes being pardoned and lacked the “public healing” justifications for rare such past exercises of the pardon authority, said Jack Goldsmith, a Harvard Law School professor who tracked Mr. Trump’s pardons.
“If Trump had granted it, which he didn’t,” Mr. Goldsmith said, “the pardon would have on some dimensions been the most audacious of his many audacious pardons.”
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The Justice Department is investigating whether Representative Matt Gaetz, Republican of Florida and a close ally of former President Donald J. Trump, broke federal sex trafficking laws, focusing on his relationships with women recruited online for sex and whether he had sex with a 17-year-old girl, The New York Times reported this week.
Investigators appear to be focused on at least two key questions, according to people briefed on their work. The first is whether Mr. Gaetz, 38, had sex with the 17-year-old and whether she received anything of material value. More broadly, federal authorities are scrutinizing involvement by the congressman and an indicted Florida associate with the women, who also received cash payments.
Investigators appear to be focused on at least two key questions, according to people briefed on their work. The first is whether Mr. Gaetz, 38, had sex with the 17-year-old and whether she received anything of material value. More broadly, federal authorities are scrutinizing involvement by the congressman and an indicted Florida associate with the women, who also received cash payments.
Mr. Gaetz, a third-term congressman who represents the Florida Panhandle, has denied that he paid for sex or had a sexual relationship with a minor. So far, he has not been charged and the extent of his criminal exposure remains unclear. The investigation is continuing.
Here is what we know so far.
The investigation includes an examination of payments to women.
Federal scrutiny of Mr. Gaetz grew out of an open investigation into a close Republican associate of the congressman’s: Joel Greenberg, the former tax collector in Seminole County, Fla., who was indicted last year on a charge of sex trafficking and other counts.
Investigators believe that Mr. Greenberg connected with women online through websites meant to facilitate dates in exchange for gifts, fine dining, travel and cash allowances. Mr. Greenberg would then introduce the women to Mr. Gaetz, who also had sex with them in Florida hotels, sometimes while taking ecstasy, an illegal mood-altering drug, according to people familiar with the encounters.
The Times also reviewed receipts from Apple Pay and another mobile payments app that show Mr. Gaetz and Mr. Greenberg transferring funds to one such woman, and Mr. Greenberg to another. The women told friends that the money was in exchange for sex.
While it is legal to pay for other adults’ hotel stays, meals and other gifts, prosecutors could try to prove that the payments were really in exchange for sex, which would be a crime.
Investigators are also trying to determine whether Mr. Gaetz, or any other men connected to him, had sex with the 17-year-old girl and gave her anything of value. Two people briefed on the investigation said the sex trafficking count that Mr. Greenberg is facing involved the same girl.
Federal law prohibits giving a minor anything of value in exchange for sex, including meals, hotel stays, drugs, alcohol or even cigarettes. A conviction under the sex trafficking statute carries a 10-year mandatory minimum prison sentence.
Gaetz has denied wrongdoing related to sex
Mr. Gaetz, an outspoken and combative fixture of conservative media, has repeatedly dismissed the investigation as politically motivated and unfounded, defending his past relationships with women.
“I have a suspicion that someone is trying to recategorize my generosity to ex-girlfriends as something more untoward,” Mr. Gaetz said in an interview on Tuesday. He said he had not had a sexual relationship with a minor and called other accusations of wrongdoing “unequivocally false.”
“Matt Gaetz has never paid for sex,” his office said in a statement on Thursday, when asked to comment on possible sexual arrangements with women. “Matt Gaetz refutes all the disgusting allegations completely. Matt Gaetz has never ever been on any such websites whatsoever. Matt Gaetz cherishes the relationships in his past and looks forward to marrying the love of his life.”
Gaetz has claimed his family is being extorted. Not exactly.
The disclosure of a serious federal criminal investigation would typically prompt carefully vetted statements and studied silence in Washington. Mr. Gaetz has gone on a media tour instead, confirming the existence of the inquiry while shifting attention to another attention-grabbing claim: that his family is being targeted by two men trying to extort it for $25 million in exchange for making potential legal problems “go away.”
The men have denied that they were trying to extort the Gaetzes.
The men — Robert Kent, a former Air Force intelligence officer, and Stephen Alford, a real estate developer who has been convicted of fraud — did approach Mr. Gaetz’s father, Don Gaetz, last month about funding efforts to find an American hostage in Iran named Robert A. Levinson. Written records provided to The Times and interviews with people involved show that the men were aware of at least the prospect that Matt Gaetz could face legal jeopardy and suggested that Mr. Levinson’s successful return could help win the congressman a presidential pardon.
The Justice Department is investigating whether Representative Matt Gaetz, Republican of Florida, broke federal sex trafficking laws.
- Mr. Gaetz, 38, was elected to Congress in 2016 and became one of President Donald J. Trump’s most outspoken advocates. The inquiry focuses on the representative’s relationships with women recruited online for sex and whether he had sex with a 17-year-old girl.
- The investigation includes an examination of payments to women. Investigators believe that he paid for sex with a number of women he met through Joel Greenberg — a former Florida tax collector who was indicted last year on a federal sex trafficking charge, among other offenses — people close to the investigation told The New York Times.
- Mr. Gaetz has repeatedly dismissed the investigation as politically motivated and unfounded, defending his past relationships with women. So far, he has not been charged and the extent of his criminal exposure remains unclear. The investigation is continuing.
- The representative has claimed that his family is being targeted by two men trying to extort it for $25 million in exchange for making potential legal problems “go away.” The men have denied that they were trying to extort the Gaetzes.
- Mr. Gaetz told The Times that he had no plans to resign from Congress. But as the investigation continues, he could face pressure either to step down or temporarily relinquish his spot on the House committee that oversees the Justice Department
- Mr. Gaetz, 38, was elected to Congress in 2016 and became one of President Donald J. Trump’s most outspoken advocates. The inquiry focuses on the representative’s relationships with women recruited online for sex and whether he had sex with a 17-year-old girl.
Don Gaetz declined their proposal, but then reported the approach to the F.B.I. out of concern it was possible extortion. The authorities now appear to be investigating the matter.
Mr. Kent said he had no intention of extorting the Gaetzes. By his account, he was merely proposing a business deal and believed a rumor he had heard about Matt Gaetz might help make it more attractive.
“I told him I’m not trying to extort, but if this were true, he might be interested in doing something good,” Mr. Kent said.
For now, Gaetz doesn’t appear to be going anywhere.
Mr. Gaetz told The Times in an interview this week that he had no plans to resign from Congress. But as the investigation continues, he could face pressure either to step down or temporarily relinquish his spot on the House committee that oversees the Justice Department.
“He should not be sitting on a Congressional Committee with oversight over the DOJ while the Department is investigating him,” Representative Ted Lieu, Democrat of California, wrote on Twitter.
Few Republicans have stood up for Mr. Gaetz, whose brash style long ago alienated many of his colleagues, but they do not appear to be trying to push him to the exits either, at least before federal investigators complete their work.
“Those are serious implications. If it comes out to be true, yes, we would remove him,” Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the House Republican leader, told Fox News this week. “But right now, Matt Gaetz says that it’s not true, and we don’t have any information. So let’s get all the information.”
Still, Mr. Gaetz himself may have other plans. Before the disclosure of the inquiry this week, the congressman had been openly discussing leaving the House to take a full-time job as a commentator at a conservative TV network, like Newsmax, according to people familiar with the conversations. Mr. Gaetz has been a fixture of conservative media, but his legal woes could complicate any plans he may have had before they became public.
In the meantime, nothing prevents Mr. Gaetz from continuing to do his regular congressional work, attending hearings, voting on legislation and receiving classified information every member of Congress is entitled to.
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@MisterChris
What's a "bastard" game?
reserved for people of uncertain parentage
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"Every time I hear the word 'conservative,' it makes me sick to my stomach, because they're really just fake Christians, as I call them. That's all they are. ... I think they want to be judge and jury. Like, I'm for gay marriage. It's none of my business if gay people want to get married. I'm pro-choice. And I think these Christians, first of all, they're not supposed to judge other people. But they're the most hypocritical judge of people we have in the country. And it bugs the hell out of me. They act like they're Christians. They're not forgiving at all."
-Charles Barkley
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"I was a Republican until they lost their minds."
-Charles Barkley
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@FLRW
Because this is a yes or no challenge to God, I would ask him that since this is such a poorly designed world, does he he have a low God IQ?
YES DEFINITELY
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@BrotherDThomas
Why does ETRNLVW continually run away from their total Bible ignorance as shown in the links below?
MY SOURCES SAY NO
At what point do you intervene in ETRNLVW making a mockery of Christianity because of their "stupidness" of the scriptures,
IT IS CERTAIN
and in doing so, do you wish ETRNLVW would vacate this prestigious Religion Forum so as not to embarrass you anymore?
VERY DOUBTFUL
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@n8nrgmi
how can i guarantee that me and my loved ones will live happy for eternity?
IT IS CERTAIN
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@secularmerlin
Why not just provide unmistakable evidence of your existence which is objectively measurable such that there is no reasonable doubt of the data?
IT IS CERTAIN
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@Sum1hugme
Why would you rather let the holocaust happen than just help your chosen people
MY SOURCES SAY NO
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@zedvictor4
Are you as nonsensical as most theists make you out to be.
OUTLOOK GOOD
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@Stephen
Has the promised "second coming" already happened?
REPLY HAZY
TRY
AGAIN
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@Theweakeredge
Oromagi - You are citing the statistic for PARTIAL VACCINATION - even though FULL VACCINATION is over 90% - of course partially vaccinating isn't going to grant the full benefit of the vaccination, that would be like saying eating a PB&J doesn't taste as good because there isn't jelly - well of course not, its not DONE.
In fact, I am citing a statistic regarding the reliability of antibody testing, not vaccinations. All 3 vaccines available to US citizens are more reliable than antibody testing but before we consider whether or not to have a vaccine passport, we should make sure that the passport is accurate enough to instill confidence.
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@Polytheist-Witch
--> @oromagiEarth is 71% water so more food area and honestly I think they made the right call up until the 18th/19th centuries.
The nineteenth century was rough on whales.
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@zedvictor4
--> @n8nrgmiAnd spaghetti grows on trees.
spaghetti grows on grass- wheat is a grass.
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these aren't the droids you're looking for
they're not some bots from the clone war
they've never been to mandalore
no need to count the midichlor
their not your robots anymore
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@coal
I'm not convinced we are at a point where immunity passports are practical.
WiKi: SARS-CoV-2 antibodies' potency and protective period have not been established. Therefore, a positive antibody test may not imply immunity to a future infection. Further, whether mild or asymptomatic infections produce sufficient antibodies for a test to detect has not been established.
We don't yet know how well immunity works or how long it lasts or whether present immunities will defend against rapid mutation.
Present antibody testing still seems pretty unreliable (80% but as low as 41% accurate when testing asymptomatic subjects (the most important subjects to detect).
With that much uncertainty it seems impossible to assert the value of such a passport.
I do think employers have a responsibility to be asking employees to immunize if they normally interact with customers. Same as a salmonella outbreak, if disease transmission can be traced to businesses out of compliance with OSHA, that business should be subject to investigations, fines, and sometimes criminal charges. Let's get a sense of how much transmission can be prevented in the private and personal sector and then, if we are able to assert immunity with confidence, we might consider some standard state/fed document.
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are republicans holding onto a losing strategy?
Republicans were forced to give up on strategy when they elected Trump. There is no party apparatus with majority influence within the party anymore. Jan 6 demonstrated quite aptly that if the Republican party leadership including the Vice President, the Senate Majority Leader, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court want one thing but Donald Trump wants the opposite, then the Republican Party is doing what Trump says and will harass, denigrate, assault any Republicans who stand in Trump's way.
Trump's not really a party strategy kind of guy. He's already declared that he'll run candidates against any Republican who offends him so he cares less whether Republicans return to power in 2022 than making sure he's still in command by 2023. The whole plan of Republicans today seems to be to find ways to keep black people from voting without actually saying that black people can't vote. Georgia actually just voted its electoral board the power to overturn elections without having to show cause. Any founding father would call that tyranny. It's as if Republicans have forgotten what America means.
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that fact always blows me away. Mammals who walked back into the ocean.
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@n8nrgmi
id id say that probability of reasonable doubt, is tied exactly to whether floyd was gonna die anyway.
By the same logic, we might argue that Chauvin was going to go to jail anyway for failing to claim at least half a million is assets not including his $100,000 BMW. Whatever happens here in this trial, Chauvin will likely do more time for fraud and tax evasion then for murdering Floyd.
- Floyd got two autopsies- one state and one celebrity. Both concluded that Floyd was murdered by asphyxiation. Neither autopsy reported any symptoms of overdose although there was drugs in his system and we can't know for sure that drugs didn't contribute to Floyd's death but that's irrelevant to Chauvin's murder charge.
- We know that the Coroners think Chauvin is guilty of murder.
- Minneapolis Police fired all four cops the next morning stating that these cops obviously violated many standard police practices and called Chauvin's actions murder. That is, if the Minneapolis Chief of Police had been standing there while Chauvin was strangling Floyd for eight minutes, Chauvin's boss would have arrested Chauvin, not Floyd.
- Minneapolis Police filed 18 prior reports of police misconduct on Chauvin, including 3 prior police shootings.
- We know that Chauvin's fellow cops and co-workers think Chauvin is guilty of murder.
- The City of Minneapolis paid Floyd's family $27 million dollars to settle the civil lawsuit.
- We know that the City of Minneapolis thinks Chauvin is guilty of murder.
- Chauvin's wife left him the next day expressing her sympathy for Floyd and horror at her husband's act.
- We know that Chauvin's wife thinks Chauvin is guilty of murder.
- State AG Keith Ellison took over the prosecution personally.
- We know that the State of Minnesota thinks Chauvin is guilty of murder.
- Chauvin agreed to plead guilty to murder in exchange for a ten year sentence in Federal jail. Bill Barr personally cancelled to plea agreement saying that it was too lenient.
- We know that the Trump administration thought Chauvin was guilty of murder.
- We know that Chauvin considers himself guilty of murder.
- Last month, the US AG opened up a Grand Jury investigation of Floyd's death with the obvious intent of trying Chauvin on civil rights violations if not found guilty now.
- We know that the Feds think Chauvin is guilty of murder.
None of this more than heresay in a court of law but in terms of setting expectations regarding verdict, let's note that all the experts and all the people around Chauvin seem convinced that Chauvin murdered Floyd, including Chauvin himself. Floyd is not on trial here Let's not let speculation about potential levels of intoxication cloud our judgement concerning our freedom from oppression by the state. It is essential that citizens in a Democracy place fierce and powerful limits on the State's capacity to kill citizens. DON'T TREAD ON ME is one popular American motto regarding the state. The government in this case literally tread on a citizen until he died while crowds of people cried "murder" and begged the government to spare his life. These citizens documented the murder live from 20 angles. There really is no rational argument that Chauvin must innocent based on the blood chemistry of the victim- Chauvin's actions by themselves would have killed almost anybody. The only reason Floyd lasted 8 minutes was because he was much bigger than most.
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@WaterPhoenix
--> @WaterPhoenixalso i'll literally doublevote this dp to disprove supa's theoryYou should vote Supa
+1
Supa and GP are walking you around like they've got a leash on you. Think for yourself. Play basic, conservative mafia and the choice has been 100% obv for 2 DPs.
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--> @Speedracein the insanely rare chance you are town pleaze vote oro
I am un CC'd COP I cop'd Speed DP1 and he came up inno
Speed is an un-CC'd tracker.
You on the other hand have counterclaimed yourself twice. First you claimed PROTECC
but then you claimed ROLEBLOCKER/PROTECTOR
then you claimed MEDIATOR without explanation. I find no MEDIATOR in the ROLE lists. Certainly seems like it deserves an explanation.
which sounds more like SCUM?
COP? TRACKER? or PROTECC/ROLEBLOCKER/PROTECTOR/MEDIATOR that breaks if GP votes?
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GP is claiming he's a ROLEBLOCKER who doesn't get his power if he votes? Sounds like silly lie to me.
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