The P in GOP increasingly seems to stand for “perpetrator” as more and more members of the good ol’ party find themselves in legal trouble.
Take Florida Representative Matt Gaetz, who, several years after first being accused of sex trafficking a minor, is seeing investigations into his actions ramping back up. This is even as fellow gasbag and Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene broadly proclaims that “it’s all changed” and “the establishment got the message.” Assuming the message in question was that a startling number of Republican congresspeople are criminals under the surface, then sure. Way to go Marj, you finally got one right.
But assuming (more accurately) that Greene was attempting to claim that the “establishment” is going to quietly bow out of its many investigations into our corrupt political leaders, our girl is just as wrong as usual. No, the GOP isn’t suddenly freed from those pesky investigations into a range of troubling accusations. In fact, many of those legal inquiries are ongoing.
Gaetz’s investigation certainly is. The 41-year-old has been under a microscope since 2020, when the Justice Department first caught wind of potentially illegal activity. In the years since, the investigation into his alleged sex trafficking of a minor has been quietly developing in the background despite the Congressman’s continued avoidance of any specific charges.
That may change now that the House Ethics Committee is seeking new witnesses in its investigation. The committee reportedly reached out to both the Justice Department and the woman who Gaetz allegedly had sexual relations with when she was only 17. Just in case anyone needs a refresher, that makes the woman in question a minor based on Florida law, and — if the allegations are found to be true — that would make Gaetz a pedophile. You know, the thing Republicans are constantly accusing Democrats of being.
It’s worth noting that the Justice Department’s investigation into Gaetz has been ongoing for years and the representative has yet to face any charges. That likely means any information passed from the Justice Department to the House Ethics Committee isn’t enough to present formal charges, but it could be enough to stop Gaetz’s political future in its tracks.