Matt Gaetz, Trump's fierce ally splashed by troubling affair
Rising star of Trumpism, young elected member of the American Congress, the Republican Matt Gaetz finds himself at the heart of a strange affair.
Suspected of having had a sexual relationship with a minor, he rejects these "false accusations" by claiming to be a victim of the establishment, and the target of blackmail involving an American who disappeared in Iran.
Arrived in the House of Representatives barely four years ago, this great ally of Donald Trump with his hair always impeccably groomed and a sparkling smile, has already made a name for himself in Washington.
The case that has plagued him for a week saw a new twist on Wednesday, when the New York Times claimed that Matt Gaetz had asked the real estate mogul to grant him a preventive judicial pardon for himself and other parliamentarians. during his final weeks at the White House.
The US Department of Justice was already investigating, at that time, suspicions of "sexual exploitation of a minor" weighing on the 38-year-old parliamentarian, according to several major US media.
Federal police are reportedly looking into the nature of his relationship with a 17-year-old, and trying to clarify whether he paid her for sexual favors. Florida law sets the age of majority at 18.
This new development prompted Donald Trump to react, after several days of deafening silence.
"Parliamentarian Matt Gaetz never asked me for a pardon," he wrote in a very brief statement.
"We must also remember that he completely rejected the charges against him," he added, without specifying whether he believed the elected representative of Florida.
"Not a monk"
It is by taking up one of the favorite expressions of the Republican billionaire, who said he wanted to "clean up the backwater" ("Drain the Swamp"), that Matt Gaetz this week proclaimed his innocence.
"The + backwater + seeks to make me sink with false accusations, but I will not let go," he wrote in the title of his column, published Monday by the conservative Washington Examiner.
I am "not a monk, and certainly not a criminal," he continued, stressing that no accuser had spoken publicly.
He who sees himself as one of Donald Trump's "warriors" had vigorously defended him after the murderous assault on Capitol Hill, carried out on January 6 by supporters of the billionaire.
Then he took center stage in a crusade against the few Republican parliamentarians who voted in favor of the indictment, then the conviction, of Donald Trump, who was ultimately acquitted.
With the first target of Wyoming elected Liz Cheney, number three Republicans in the House and daughter of former powerful vice-president Dick Cheney.
He even went to challenge her at the end of January on her land to call on Republican voters to choose another representative.
"People will not be surprised that these bizarre accusations are aimed at me soon after I decide to challenge the most powerful institutions" in Washington, including the "Cheney dynasty," he wrote in his column.
No "threat"
As soon as the first articles on the investigation against him appeared last week, Matt Gaetz claimed that his family had been the victim of an attempted extortion, and that these "false accusations" had been exposed for the sole purpose of to blackmail him.
The case took an even more confused turn on Monday, when a former member of the United States Army, Bob Kent, admitted to reaching out to the elected official's father to ask for $ 25 million.
It was, he told CNN and SiriusXM radio, funds to find a former FBI agent, Robert Levinson, missing from a private mission in Iran in 2007.
"This is not an attempt at extortion," he said he told Don Gaetz, a former Florida parliamentarian and wealthy businessman.
By funding the search missions, the Gaetz family would gain welcome "good press" for the son under serious suspicion, said Bob Kent.
While Republican congressional leaders have so far been quiet on the whole affair, Matt Gaetz was invited to speak at Donald Trump's Doral Golf Club in Miami on Friday at a symposium hosted by ... a pro-Trump women's group, "Women for America First".
