Political Sex and Corruption Scandals

[LFC]

Let's look at the facts. Cuomo was hit with an accusation and a number of Democrats looked at it. He was hit by a second accusation and a number of Democrats called for an investigation. As the number went up there were Democrats calling for his resignation. All this happened quite quickly.

Gaetz is being buried under an avalanche of accusations including sex with a minor, transporting a minor, paying for sex, and who knows what else. The Republican response? FINALLY Rep. Adam Kinzinger (who voted in favor of Trump's impeachment) speaks up. The rest are strangely quiet.

Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) is calling on fellow House Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz (FL) to resign amid a federal investigation into allegations that he had sex with an underage girl and may have violated federal sex trafficking laws.

“Matt Gaetz needs to resign,” Kinzinger tweeted Thursday night, linking to a Daily Beast report that indicated the Florida congressman had allegedly made Venmo payments to young women presumably for sex, through his associate former Florida tax collector Joel Green, who was indicted on multiple charges including sex trafficking of a minor.

Meanwhile serial sexual predator Madison Cawthorn's actions are also ignored. So much for the moral majority. That term is wrong on both counts.

[LFC]

In what has to be one of the worst jobs in America a PR firm representing Gaetz is threatening journalists with lawsuits, because that's what Republicans do, if they cover his deteriorating relationship with Trump. I guess Trump just doesn't like losers and right now Gaetz is looking like an even bigger loser than before.

Logan Circle Group, a public relations and consulting firm working for the scandal-plauged Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), is threatening legal action against journalists for reporting that ex-President Donald Trump has recently distanced himself from the congressman, who is under federal investigation for alleged sex trafficking involving a minor.

Politico reports that Erin Elmore, an official at the organization, has emailed at least two journalists to threaten them with lawsuits over reports of Trump largely avoiding Gaetz and of allegations that the GOP lawmaker had privately asked the ex-president for pre-emptive blanket pardon for any crimes he may have committed.

“We are seeking an immediate print and on-air statement of retraction,” Elmore wrote to a Politico journalist on Wednesday after the outlet published a report detailing Trump’s abandonment of Gaetz. “Failure to comply with this request may result in litigation.”

Elmore pointed to a brief statement Trump had issued earlier this week claiming that Gaetz “has never asked me for a pardon” and that “t must also be remembered that he has totally denied the accusations against him.”

“President Trump issued a statement indicating that Congressman Gaetz has never sought a Presidential Pardon,” Elmore wrote in her email to the Politico reporter. “Such a statement would also indicate that President Donald Trump has not distanced himself from Congressman Gaetz.”

Another instance of Elmore threatening legal action over negative coverage of the congressman appeared in the Daily Beast’s new report on Gaetz’s Venmo transactions to alleged sex trafficker Joel Greenberg. Elmore warned the Daily Beast that a lawyer would be “closely monitoring your coverage.”

[LFC]

Rats. Sinking ship.

Another top aide to Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) has resigned, a person familiar with the matter told The Daily Beast on Thursday.

Devin Murphy, who had served as Gaetz’s legislative director on Capitol Hill, officially bolted on Friday, as the scandal surrounding a federal probe into Gaetz’s alleged sexual misconduct continued to balloon. On Thursday evening, The Daily Beast reported that Gaetz had Venmo'd $900 to his friend and alleged child sex trafficker Joel Greenberg in May 2018. Greenberg subsequently paid that same amount of money to three women, one of whom had turned 18 just five months prior.

Murphy’s resignation was first reported by The New York Times. According to the Times, Murphy had confided in associates that he wasn’t interested in being caught up in a “TMZ”-type environment.

Murphy did not respond to The Daily Beast’s repeated requests for comment on Thursday. Gaetz did not immediately reply, either.

[andydp]

Flori-DUH the state that just keeps on giving.

Eric M. Lipman, Florida Elections Commission general counsel, arrested on child porn charges

The top lawyer for the Florida commission that investigates and prosecutes election law violations is facing charges of possession of child pornography.



Eric M. Lipman, general counsel for the Florida Elections Commission, was arrested Wednesday on 11 counts of the crime. He was taken to the Leon County Detention Center and later released.

www.tallahassee.com/story/news/local/2021/04/08/tallahassee-man-arrested-child-porn-charges-florida-election-commission-lawyer-attorney/7137060002/?fbclid=IwAR3uS-E9Z1xI3vgc0LEQsqB-VsUs7kgLskRPUuPQvTTWZ6clU-YxO5DB4w4

Ed Note:
I served on a Grand Jury couple of years ago. We heard a couple of child porn cases.  The amazing thing is the websites are known and police agencies monitor them.  They know how to track and find these people.  Why then do people keep doing this is beyond me.   I realize its an obsession but the threat of jail and loss of your reputation should be deterrents.

[Bact PhD]

Apr 9, 2021 13:58:00 GMT LFC said:

(Spoiler Alert: Matt Gaetz is a f***ing idiot.)

I see what you did there.

[LFC]

The House Ethics Committee has opened up investigations into sexual misconduct allegations against Rep. Matt Gaetz and Rep. Tom Reed.

The House Ethics Committee announced Friday that it is officially launching investigations into Reps. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) and Tom Reed (R-NY) for various allegations of sexual misconduct.

Gaetz is reportedly under investigation by the Justice Department to determine whether he had sex with and trafficked a minor, an investigation stemming from the indictment of his friend, former Seminole County tax collector Joel Greenberg, who was indicted last summer on a trafficking charge, among others.

Reed was accused of sexual misconduct by a former lobbyist last month, and has since apologized.

The lobbyist, Nicolette Davis, described an episode in 2017 where Reed unhooked her bra from outside of her shirt and moved his hand up her thigh until she asked a coworker sitting next to her to intervene.

While he initially said the account was “not accurate,” Reed put out a statement days later saying that “I hear her voice and will not dismiss her.”

No shock that Gaetz is simultaneously playing the victim and the warrior.

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) insisted to a crowd of supporters in Florida on Friday that he was the victim of “the lies” and “the smears” of his critics as he faces a Justice Department inquiry over whether he broke sex trafficking laws.

“They lie about me because I tell the truth about them, and I’m not gonna stop,” Gaetz said at an event hosted at Trump National Doral Miami, by the group Women for America First. “So when you see the leaks and the lies and the falsehoods and the smears, when you see the anonymous sources and insiders forecasting my demise, know this: They aren’t really coming for me. They’re coming for you. I’m just in the way.”

[LFC]

The Gaetz saga just keeps getting weirder and sleazier.

Call it a harmonic convergence. Or simply too good to be true.

There are some indications that two scandals roiling Florida politics may actually be connected, tying the federal probe of Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) to a slate of sham candidates that cropped up across the state in 2020.

Could that possibly be? This may not be the scandal we want, but is it possibly the one we deserve?

In one, we have the rapidly emerging degeneracy of Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), who is facing a federal probe into allegations that he paid for a 17-year-old to travel across state lines in exchange for sex. Meanwhile, the “wingman” who reportedly got Gaetz into this mess appears poised to enter into a cooperation agreement with the feds.

And in the other, there’s an equally bizarre but perhaps more typical political scheme: a plot to run sham candidates across Florida to siphon votes away from the Democratic Party candidates.

It’s not clear how closely the two are connected. But what may bring them together is a confluence of money, Gaetz’s political connections, and a man loudly bragging at a Florida bar.

[LFC]

Josh Marshall can't make sense of what Gaetz is doing. It's clear to me that he's too dumb to do something that makes sense.

What strikes me most about the on-going Gaetz clown show isn’t the audacity but the irrelevance. Gaetz has moved full bore into Deep State grievance/conspiracy theory mode. It’s not about statutory rape or sex trafficking, he claims. The Deep State and the Elites are coming after him because he stands for the common man. As he wrote in his Examiner Oped, “They aren’t coming for me — they are coming for you. I’m just in the way.”

I don’t doubt this may gun up some number of people on the Trumpite right, though it’s notable that the great majority of folks in Trump/rightwing grievance world don’t seem interested. (Even Trump himself isn’t throwing him a lifeline.) But it just doesn’t matter. Federal law enforcement just works in a methodical and relentless way, often too relentless. Whether you’re winning news cycles or owning the libs just doesn’t matter. You can win every morning until the day you’re sentenced. State and local law enforcement is sometimes more sensitive to public opinion or political influence. But federal law enforcement just doesn’t work that way. If anything having a member of Congress in the crosshairs for a crime packed with public opprobrium makes them go more into overdrive. It just doesn’t matter. And he’s not really winning any news cycles anyway.

Of course while Trump was President this was equally true except when it wasn’t. Trump repeatedly pressured the Justice Department on prosecutions, though it’s not clear how effectively. But he could simply pardon people. And he did. Without Trump around it’s all just sound and fury signifying nothing.

We’ve heard about the PR team he’s retained for the scandal. But I still haven’t heard about a lawyer.

[goldenvalley]

Why do we expect wrong doers to be smart? Gaetz is probably no different from a lot of folks. He did something(s) that he thought no one would notice or care about. He's wealthy and connected politically. That's probably as much thinking that went into it.

[Deleted]

"They're coming for me... they're coming for you... I'm coming for your teenage daughters" 

[LFC]

Apr 13, 2021 17:03:17 GMT @probabilistic3 said:

I'm coming for your teenage daughters" 

And not in an honorable way like a 30-something Roy Moore looking for a child bride per God(tm)'s wishes.

[andydp]

Apr 13, 2021 17:03:17 GMT @probabilistic3 said:

"They're coming for me... they're coming for you... I'm coming for your teenage daughters" 

Has he tried Chuck e Cheese ?

[Bact PhD]

Apr 13, 2021 16:41:12 GMT goldenvalley said:

Why do we expect wrong doers to be smart? Gaetz is probably no different from a lot of folks. He did something(s) that he thought no one would notice or care about. He's wealthy and connected politically. That's probably as much thinking that went into it.

(bold mine) That's the difference between Matt Gaetz, scion of a political Panhandle family, and Matt Goodman, ordinary adult in the Panhandle. And based on the wealth and political connections, Gaetz probably thought he'd either never get caught in the first place or skate past any consequences...just as he likely has through just about every scrape he's gotten in since he was a teenager.

[andydp]

Another chapter in the continuing Fallwell Jr. "crash and burn".


New Lawsuit Is Another Ugly Chapter in Jerry Falwell Jr.’s Messy Divorce with Liberty University

Fifty years later, the institution he created is suing his son, claiming he covered up scandalous information while negotiating a contract in 2019.

Falwell Jr. resigned his post as the school’s president a year later, after it was revealed that his wife, Becki, was having an affair with their pool boy. Falwell Jr. knew of the ongoing tryst and paid the man to keep silent.

He also posted a sexually suggestive photo of a Liberty University employee on Instagram without her consent. Members of the Liberty community were concerned about his drinking; he eventually went to rehab.

Needless to say, none of this comports with the strict code of conduct at the religiously pious school. But Falwell Jr. was entitled to a multi-million dollar payout on his way out the door (he says $10.5 million, the school says $2.5 million).

(snip)

The suit alleges that Mr. Falwell deceived the board’s executive committee into redesigning his contract to include a higher severance payout if he resigned for “good reason” or if Liberty terminated his contract without cause. Mr. Falwell claimed to the committee that this would serve as a “safety valve” for both him and the university if his full-throated support of former President Donald J. Trump proved damaging to the school’s reputation.

Full article here:

www.newsandguts.com/new-lawsuit-is-another-ugly-chapter-in-jerry-falwell-jr-s-messy-divorce-with-liberty-university/?fbclid=IwAR1E-XsUFEDj7JmNIaMYif3a8WN122DMO_U4Xuo8J-VJ2dzO988IaPNmiz4

[Rue Bella]

Apr 13, 2021 18:04:47 GMT andydp said:

Apr 13, 2021 17:03:17 GMT @probabilistic3 said:

"They're coming for me... they're coming for you... I'm coming for your teenage daughters" 

Has he tried Chuck e Cheese ?

I thought Chuck e Cheese was a dude. And a rodent. 

Gay bestiality? Gaetz? Well, maybe...

[AnBr]

Apr 16, 2021 22:38:11 GMT Rue Bella said:

Gay bestiality? Gaetz? Well, maybe...

Well, if we are talking about Republicans...

[goldenvalley]

Apr 16, 2021 19:50:39 GMT andydp said:

Another chapter in the continuing Fallwell Jr. "crash and burn".


New Lawsuit Is Another Ugly Chapter in Jerry Falwell Jr.’s Messy Divorce with Liberty University

This stuff isn't important in the grand scheme of things, it's a private dispute among parties, and I really shouldn't even pay attention to it.  That I do probably reflects badly on my character.  But geez it sure is fun to watch...as is the Gaetz spectacle.  

[LFC]

TPM has a nice summary titled All Of The Things That Matt Gaetz Most Definitely Did NOT Exchange For Sex.

The list of things that Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) has absolutely positively not exchanged for sex is long and growing.

The crux of Gaetz’s defense to the spiraling and sordid allegations against him is that he never paid for sex. Period. End of sentence.

“I have never, ever paid for sex,” Gaetz wrote in an April 5 op-ed for the Washington Examiner.

Those gifts? Nope. The vacations? Nah. Legislative favors? Why, never.

It was never about sex, Gaetz strenuously maintains.

So we set to compile a list of the things Matt Gaetz did not exchange for sex.

[LFC]

All corrupt roads lead to Trump and his entourage. Matt Gaetz's buddy and pimp tried to purchase a pardon through Roger Stone.

A confession letter written by Joel Greenberg in the final months of the Trump presidency claims that he and close associate Rep. Matt Gaetz paid for sex with multiple women—as well as a girl who was 17 at the time.

“On more than one occasion, this individual was involved in sexual activities with several of the other girls, the congressman from Florida’s 1st Congressional District and myself,” Greenberg wrote in reference to the 17-year-old.

“From time to time, gas money or gifts, rent or partial tuition payments were made to several of these girls, including the individual who was not yet 18. I did see the acts occur firsthand and Venmo transactions, Cash App or other payments were made to these girls on behalf of the Congressman.”

The letter, which The Daily Beast recently obtained, was written after Greenberg—who was under federal indictment—asked Roger Stone to help him secure a pardon from then-President Donald Trump.

A series of private messages starting in late 2020—also recently obtained by The Daily Beast—shows a number of exchanges between Greenberg and Stone conducted over the encrypted messaging app Signal, with communications set to disappear. However, Greenberg appears to have taken screenshots of a number of their conversations.

“If I get you $250k in Bitcoin would that help or is this not a financial matter,” Greenberg wrote to Stone, one message shows.

“I understand all of this and have taken it into consideration,” Stone replied. “I will know more in the next 24 hours I cannot push too hard because of the nonsense surrounding pardons.”

“I hope you are prepared to wire me $250,000 because I am feeling confident,” Stone wrote to Greenberg on Jan. 13.

[goldenvalley]

Ah Roger Stone. It figures that he was involved in pardon decisions, not just the recipient of one. I wonder if he got the $250K in Bitcoin after all.

[LFC]

Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA) is calling for Gaetz to be removed from the House Judiciary Committee which has oversight of the DOJ, the same DOJ that is investigating Gaetz. I suspect McCarthy will do what he always does and that is spew out some bullshit and then do nothing.

Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA) called for Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) to face consequences Thursday night after The Daily Beast published a report on a confession letter written by a longtime associate claiming Gaetz repeatedly paid women for sex, including a 17-year-old. Tagging House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), Lieu wrote, “Dear @gopleader: Please remove Rep Matt Gaetz from the House Judiciary Committee immediately. The Committee has jurisdiction over the Department of Justice that is investigating Rep Gaetz, including allegedly for sex crimes with a minor. This is an untenable conflict of interest.” Lieu has repeatedly called for Gaetz to be booted from the committee since the allegations against him first became public. Gaetz was appointed to the committee at the start of the 115th Congress in 2017. The Florida Republican is under federal investigation for potential sex trafficking. He has not been charged with a crime, and he has denied the allegations against him.

[andydp]

This should prove interesting...

Gaetz To Yell His Way Through Scandal By Kicking Up Dirt Within GOP Amid Sex Trafficking Probe



According to Politico, Gaetz is teaming up with far-right extremist Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) to launch an “America First Tour,” where they’ll rail against “the radical left” and Republicans who they believe aren’t loyal enough to ex-President Donald Trump.

The spectacle will reportedly begin on May 7 in Florida at The Villages, a prominent bastion of conservative retirees

Story here:

www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/gaetz-to-yell-his-way-through-scandal-by-kicking-up-dirt-within-gop-amid-sex-trafficking-probe/ar-BB1ge7bx?ocid=msedgntp

[Bact PhD]

May 1, 2021 12:33:49 GMT andydp said:

This should prove interesting...

Gaetz To Yell His Way Through Scandal By Kicking Up Dirt Within GOP Amid Sex Trafficking Probe



According to Politico, Gaetz is teaming up with far-right extremist Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) to launch an “America First Tour,” where they’ll rail against “the radical left” and Republicans who they believe aren’t loyal enough to ex-President Donald Trump.

The spectacle will reportedly begin on May 7 in Florida at The Villages, a prominent bastion of conservative retirees

Story here:

www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/gaetz-to-yell-his-way-through-scandal-by-kicking-up-dirt-within-gop-amid-sex-trafficking-probe/ar-BB1ge7bx?ocid=msedgntp

Of course it will. Sigh.

Thank goodness I'll be heading in the opposite direction that day...ballgame in Tally.

[LFC]

May 1, 2021 12:33:49 GMT andydp said:

According to Politico, Gaetz is teaming up with far-right extremist Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) to launch an “America First Tour,” where they’ll rail against “the radical left” and Republicans who they believe aren’t loyal enough to ex-President Donald Trump.

The spectacle will reportedly begin on May 7 in Florida at The Villages, a prominent bastion of conservative retirees

YES! We WANT these people to remain the face of the Republican Party all the way through 2022 since they clearly represent its soul ... or the nearest approximation it can have to a soul.

[LFC]

Jerry is losing it.

After inviting Liberty University students to the family farm for a “real” graduation party, former university leader Jerry Falwell Jr. has called off the event.

In a statement issued by Becki Falwell, Jerry’s wife, and reported by Lynchburg’s ABC affiliate, the evangelical scion called off the gathering, citing health reasons.

“This is a major disappointment to us since we wanted to celebrate the success of the graduating students and show them our appreciation,” Falwell said in the statement.

The cancellation came after Falwell was videotaped crashing an off-campus stand-up comedy event for Liberty students, where he invited “all seniors” to the family farm on May 8.

“We’re gonna have the real Liberty graduation,” Falwell intoned while holding a mic.

“If you’re not a senior but you date one, you can come, too,” he added.

I wonder who told him he was being a total f***wit and a party, that you know would be a Jerry kind of party, was practically handing Liberty University victory in their court case against him.