Schadenfreude is the best Freud

Gaetz-gate explodes as Florida Tax Collector Guy is indicted on 21 new charges

Florida congressman Matt Gaetz seen leaving his apartment this morning.

Here I was only a few months ago sitting around lamenting that I wouldn’t have Trump around to write about anymore, when I was forgetting that we still have the entire Republican Party!

Exhibit One:  Matt Gaetz, the scandal that keeps on getting weirder, the gift that keeps on giving.  The New York Times is out this morning with a front page story on the ballooning investigation of the Florida Republican congressman:

“A Justice Department investigation into Representative Matt Gaetz and an indicted Florida politician is focusing on their involvement with multiple women who were recruited online for sex and received cash payments, according to people close to the investigation and text messages and payment receipts reviewed by The New York Times.”

But wait!  There’s more!  They were using a “sugar daddy” website called “SeekingArrangement” to meet young women!

“Investigators believe Joel Greenberg, the former tax collector in Seminole County, Fla., who was indicted last year on a federal sex trafficking charge and other crimes, initially met the women through websites that connect people who go on dates in exchange for gifts, fine dining, travel and allowances, according to three people with knowledge of the encounters. Mr. Greenberg introduced the women to Mr. Gaetz, who also had sex with them, the people said.”

But wait!  There’s more!  CNN followed the Times revelations almost immediately with breaking news that…wait for it…a Hula Hoop was involved:

“Gaetz allegedly showed off to other lawmakers photos and videos of nude women he said he had slept with, the sources told CNN, including while on the House floor. The sources, including two people directly shown the material, said Gaetz displayed the images of women on his phone and talked about having sex with them. One of the videos showed a naked woman with a hula hoop, according to one source.”

But wait!  There’s more!  Gaetz and Tax Collector Guy used Cash App, a mobile payments app, and Apple Pay to pay at least two of the women:

“The Times has reviewed receipts from Cash App, a mobile payments app, and Apple Pay that show payments from Mr. Gaetz and Mr. Greenberg to one of the women, and a payment from Mr. Greenberg to a second woman. The women told their friends that the payments were for sex with the two men, according to two people familiar with the conversations.”

But wait!  There’s more!  Gaetz and Tax Collector Guy arranged to meet women at hotels around the state of Florida and sometimes used ATMs at the hotels to withdraw money used to pay the women! 

Can’t you see it?  Gaetz and Tax Collector Guy suddenly realize that Apple Pay and Cash App might leave a paper trail.  Cue lightbulb over Gaetz’ head:  I’ve got it!  I’ll go downstairs and withdraw cash from the ATM!  You know, the ATM in the lobby with the camera that records every transaction, records every cash withdrawal, and is located right under the hotel CCTV!  Nobody will know a thing that way!

But wait!  There’s more!  Family values Republican Gaetz and his pal Tax Collector Guy used drugs to ply the women they met on “SeekingArrangement” for sex!

“Some of the men and women took ecstasy, an illegal mood-altering drug, before having sex, including Mr. Gaetz, two people familiar with the encounters said.”

But wait!  There’s more!  Federal prosecutors filed a supplemental indictment with 21 new charges against Gaetz’ pal Tax Collector Guy for “wire fraud, conspiracy to bribe a public official and theft of government property,” according to the Orlando Sentinel.  Tax Collector Guy bribed a federal official to obtain $432,000 in fraudulent loans from a federal program intended to help small businesses hit by the COVID pandemic.  He used at least part of that money, prosecutors said, to buy sports memorabilia autographed by NBA players Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan.

But wait!  There’s more!  Gaetz himself helpfully telegraphed what would be coming and at the same time threw his role model Donald Trump under the bus in his own book published only last year, “Firebrand:  Dispatches from the Front Lines of the MAGA Revolution”:

“We’ve got a president now who doesn’t care for puritanical grandstanding or moralistic preening. He is a lot more direct, even visceral, open, and realistic about his likes and dislikes, so overall, this is a good time to be a fun-loving politician instead of a stick-in-the-mud. I have an active social life, and it’s probably easier in the era of Trump. We’ve had ‘perfect family man’ presidents before, after all, and many of those men sold out our country, even if their wives were happy the whole time. If politicians’ family lives aren’t what really matter to the voters, maybe that’s a good thing. I’m a representative, not a monk.”

See, folks, that’s the mistake we’ve been making all along:  electing too damn many presidents with happy wives.  But not to worry!  The Republican Party is on the case!  They’ve got candidates with unhappy wives lined up around the block just waiting for your votes!  Can you imagine?  We may be entering a Wilderness of Melanias.

Meanwhile, over at Fox News:  The house network of the Republican Party went 30 straight hours without a single mention of Matt Gaetz or anything having to do with the burgeoning scandal surrounding their fave bachelor.  Thirty hours from Wednesday through Thursday, the No Gaetz-gate network, treating their everything-denial boy the same way they treat global warming, racism, the COVID pandemic and so much else.

Nothing to see here, folks!  Gaetz?  Who he?  Look!  Over there!  A brown person is coming across the border!