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You are here: Home / Economics / C.R.E.A.M. / Late Night Repub Venality Open Thread: Florida Men

Late Night Repub Venality Open Thread: Florida Men

by Anne Laurie|  April 1, 20211:31 am| 59 Comments

This post is in: C.R.E.A.M., Excellent Links, Open Threads, Republican Venality

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What a saga…”While the Justice Department investigates possible sex crimes, the FBI is separately examining whether the request to his father about Levinson might constitute extortion, with Gaetz and his family as possible victims.” https://t.co/P6FrB3dF3Z

— Natasha Bertrand (@NatashaBertrand) March 31, 2021

Matt Gaetz would say that he owes his current position in national politics to his relentless Trump-humping championing of extremely conservative, media-friendly ‘ideas’. But he got his start drawing on his father’s fortune, garnered from iffy ‘healthcare’ businesses and shady real-estate deals. Of course, Florida has been a mecca for real-estate grifters since the 1820s (assuming you don’t count Ponce de Leon), but the interbreeding of “development” grifters with the local beady-eyed Confederate revanchists and the money-laundering migrants from Latin & Central America’s various kakistocracies has produced a flourishing culture of intricate dishonesty upon which less gifted exemplars of civic corruption can only gape with awe. Now that Carl Hiaasen has retired from his regular journalism gig, perhaps he can write the definite guide to Matt Gaetz’s Big Wet Scandal…

So far, Gaetz has decided to let Twitter and Tucker Carlson know that he was *not* a ‘sex trafficker’, and neither was his good buddy Tucker a rapist, winkwinknudgenege (for once, Carlson’s befuddled head-tilt, mouth-ajar expression did not seem out of place), because it was all down to the filthy old FBI trying to ‘entrap’ his old man. Even Chris Cillizza had trouble swallowing that one. The Washington Post has a possible source for that deeply muddled claim, involving free-lancing former agents looking to fund the search for a (probably dead) ex-FBI captive of the Iranian government:

Rep. Matt Gaetz, a Florida Republican known for his fierce allegiance to former president Donald Trump, had been under Justice Department investigation for months for a possible sex crime when two men approached his father with a proposal, people familiar with the matter said.

The men had learned of the investigation, they wrote to Don Gaetz, and wanted to offer an opportunity to help his son, the people said. He could give a huge sum of money to fund their effort to locate Robert A. Levinson — the longest-held American hostage in Iran, whose family has said they were told he is dead. If the operation were a success, he would win public favor and help alleviate Matt Gaetz’s legal woes…

The men who approached Don Gaetz, people familiar with the matter said, had no apparent connection to the sex-crimes investigation of his son, other than having somehow learned about it before it was publicly reported. But when news of law enforcement’s interest in Gaetz surfaced Tuesday, the congressman asserted that the allegation was “rooted in an extortion effort against my family for $25 million,” and he identified by name a former federal prosecutor who he said was part of the effort.

While the Justice Department investigates Gaetz, the FBI is separately examining whether the request to his father about Levinson might constitute extortion, with Gaetz and his family as possible victims. A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment…

Substantiating criminal charges in the extortion probe could be difficult, people familiar with the matter said, noting that, when the two men — who have not been identified — first contacted Don Gaetz, they did not explicitly threaten to expose the congressman unless they were paid. Even if investigators do come to believe there was an attempt to extort the Gaetz family, it appears connected to the sex-crimes investigation only because the men involved discovered it and used it as leverage for personal purposes, people familiar with the matter said…

The initial communications to Don Gaetz referencing Levinson’s case came from Kent and a Florida developer named Stephen Alford, according to the Examiner and a person familiar with the matter. According to court records and local media reports, Alford has previously been convicted in local and federal fraud cases and spent significant time in prison…

Gaetz mentions that someone has alleged there's photos of him with child prostitutes. He claims such pictures don't exist. pic.twitter.com/GSCz9ea8T4

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 31, 2021

You’d think a member of the House would know he has the right to remain silent

— Preet Bharara (@PreetBharara) March 31, 2021

New twist: Washington Examiner appears to have materials showing scheme to get Matt Gaetz to help free an ex-FBI agent in Iran by saying the FBI has photos of him in an “sexual orgy with underage prostitues.”

— Hugo Lowell (@hugolowell) March 31, 2021

It seems, at the moment, as though the original Gaetz “rumors” were sourced from a certain Joel Greenberg; per the Washington Post, again:

Until last year, Joel Greenberg was an ascendant political player in Seminole County, Fla., where he unseated a longtime incumbent in the race for county tax collector, won a political battle to allow his deputies to carry guns on the job and flaunted his connections to prominent Republicans with close ties to then-President Donald Trump, including Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) and Roger Stone.

But last June his reputation fell apart in spectacular fashion when federal investigators arrested him on stalking and child sex trafficking charges, prompting his resignation…

It’s unclear exactly how Greenberg’s criminal case is connected to the Gaetz investigation; Greenberg’s lawyers did not immediately respond to messages from The Post. But it is clear that the two men, who posed for a photo together outside the White House in 2019, had ties in Florida, where they both first gained power in the GOP around 2016…

Don’t know where this will all end up, but for a lifetime fan of John D. MacDonald, Dave Barry, and Mr. Hiaasen, it all seems Extremely Florida Stories…

all Florida politics are ultimately about skeezy lawyers threatening other skeezy lawyers.

— Never, EVER Donate to the Lincoln Project (@Zeddary) March 31, 2021

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Reader Interactions

59Comments

  1. 1.

    HumboldtBlue

    April 1, 2021 at 1:40 am

    It used to be peak wingnut.

    It’s been glaringly clear it’s peak sexual abuse projection — pizza parlors and sex trade while Trump shits his pants in the Oval office — from the git-go.

  2. 2.

    Baud

    April 1, 2021 at 1:42 am

    Of course, Florida has been a mecca for real-estate grifters since the 1820s (assuming you don’t count Ponce de Leon), but the interbreeding of “development” grifters with the local beady-eyed Confederate revanchists and the money-laundering migrants from Latin & Central America’s various kakistocracies has produced a flourishing culture of intricate dishonesty upon which less gifted exemplars of civic corruption can only gape with awe.

    That should be a passage in a novel.

  3. 3.

    NotMax

    April 1, 2021 at 1:47 am

    Obligatory.

  4. 4.

    Amir Khalid

    April 1, 2021 at 1:48 am

    I agree with Preet Bharara. Matt Gaetz needs to lawyer up and shut up. The more he says, the guiltier he looks. Right now, he’s just digging himself in deeper.

  5. 5.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    April 1, 2021 at 1:49 am

    @Baud: Except novels are fiction, that’s all true.

  6. 6.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    April 1, 2021 at 1:49 am

    @Amir Khalid: Matt Gaetz is a lawyer representing himself.

  7. 7.

    Mai Naem mobile

    April 1, 2021 at 2:06 am

    I think the guy who they’re saying was trying to extort  Daddy Gaetz was telling him the cost of putting up a legal defense for his son. I truly don’t understand these people. Matt Gaetz may have been able to get away with this crap if he had been a rich guy with his icky peculiarities but he decided to become a congressman. He decided to become a high level Trumpov boot licker congress critter.. You aren’t going to get away with this at that level, dumbass. BTW, I thought Levinson was dead.

  8. 8.

    Martin

    April 1, 2021 at 2:12 am

    AOC was talking about the infrastructure bill and says it’s too small. Thinking about it, I agree. It’s $2T over 7 years or $300B a year. To put that in context, that’s about double what Apple, Intel, Google, Amazon, and Microsoft combined spend annually on infrastructure. Manchin is open to double that amount. I say they go for it.

  9. 9.

    David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch

    April 1, 2021 at 2:12 am

    They’re gonna have to build a new cell block to house of all Dump’s cronies

  10. 10.

    Martin

    April 1, 2021 at 2:13 am

    @Mai Naem mobile: Gaetz should have gotten his pardon when he had the chance.

  11. 11.

    NotMax

    April 1, 2021 at 2:23 am

    Impeached twice. Now also deFaced twice.

    (Also, how long now until Mr. Infrastructure Week issues spittle-flecked invective opposing infrastructure spending?)

  12. 12.

    Ruckus

    April 1, 2021 at 2:24 am

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: 
    Me thinks the lawyer has an idiot for a client.

  13. 13.

    Kent

    April 1, 2021 at 2:27 am

    It always astonishes me when these folks with absolutely sordid pasts, habits, and business practices go into politics. They are rich white men and would basically have spent their whole lives just getting away with this shit. Except that they are so vain they have to fling themselves into the public eye via politics. And it all eventually comes out.

    Trump is exhibit 1 for this phenomenon. We haven’t remotely seen all the shoes drop with him. And only by sheer force of will and willingness to break every norm was he able to keep most of it at bay during his presidency. Here we have mini-Trump Gaetz doing his best to follow in Trump’s footsteps. Epstein was another one who could have gotten away with it all except he also chose to fly too close to the sun.

    Makes you think about how many other sordid fucks there out there doing this shit who are completely ignored because they aren’t in politics or the public eye.

  14. 14.

    NotMax

    April 1, 2021 at 2:34 am

    @Kent

    Part of it must stem from an entrenched conception that they are not absolutely sordid activities, they are “things everybody does.”

    Another part can probably be ascribed to a Leona Helmsley mindset that the laws apply only to “the little people.”

  15. 15.

    LeftCoastYankee

    April 1, 2021 at 2:40 am

    Roger Stone is the Zelig of evil.

  16. 16.

    Mary G

    April 1, 2021 at 2:45 am

    The underbussing has commenced:

    Gaetz says he had convos with Fox & OAN about possible jobs. A Fox spox said in response that "no one with any level of authority" has had convos w/him & "we have no interest in hiring him." OAN's founder says he's "not really hiring" for shows right now. https://t.co/jFU7VcBSFk— Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) March 31, 2021

    No comment from Newsmax speaks louder than words.

  17. 17.

    NotMax

    April 1, 2021 at 2:50 am

    Media note.

    TCM’s “31 Days of Oscar” begins at 6 a.m. on April 1st. Personally don’t much care for the event as all it does is lump together films with some connection to the Oscars, be it a win in a major category or a nomination for best catering*. And, frankly, more than a few of these movies have not aged well.

    Anyhoo, this year it’s strictly alphabetical. Here’s the full list.

    *hyperbole, but you get the idea

  18. 18.

    tokyokie

    April 1, 2021 at 3:10 am

    @NotMax: Although I realize your crack about the Oscar for best catering is sarcastic, I find the ever-lengthening end credits to be disturbing. A lot of movies through the mid-1950s would have one credit, that said, “The End.” Now we seemingly get the names of everybody who passed through the offices of the Czech company that got the contract for the CGI. I don’t need to know them, or the name of the caterer, or whoever provided the completion bond, etc. and so forth. Although I’ll add that being able to look up the credits at home on imdb makes me less inclined  to stay all the way through them if my old man’s bladder is screaming at me.

  19. 19.

    TriassicSands

    April 1, 2021 at 3:20 am

    “President Trump endorses Gaetz in the Republican primary calling him ‘one of the finest and most talented people in Congress.’” Mother Jones article

    That’s hilarious. If there is one thing that four years of What’s His Name in the White House proved beyond any doubt, it is that he is absolutely the worst judge of character, competence, and skill on the planet.¹ If he said Gaetz is talented, then you get bet every penny you’ve got that Gaetz is infinitely inept in any  and every way that matters to decent people.

    ¹ I never saw a single episode of any of the Apprentice shows, but What’s His Name’s myriad business failures and his personnel choices as president make the premise of the show laughable.

  20. 20.

    Steeplejack

    April 1, 2021 at 3:27 am

    Words of wisdom from Ron White.

  21. 21.

    Amir Khalid

    April 1, 2021 at 3:27 am

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:
    I was recently involved in a criminal trial of a lawyer. (As a victim.) That lawyer did not go pro se, as it’s called. My understanding, both from that experience and from having been a court reporter, is that it’s generally not a good idea to defend yourself even if you’re a lawyer. Matt Gaetz needs the best criminak lawyer he can get, and that’s almost certainly not him.
    (That lawyer I mentioned is currently appealing her conviction as well as trying to stall on paying restitution.)

  22. 22.

    Amir Khalid

    April 1, 2021 at 3:30 am

    @tokyokie:
    In them days, the credit roll was typically at the beginning of the movie.

  23. 23.

    Amir Khalid

    April 1, 2021 at 3:34 am

    @Amir Khalid:
    Also too, Gaetz’s current lawyer doesn’t seem able to tell him to STFU for his own sake.

  24. 24.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    April 1, 2021 at 3:35 am

    @Amir Khalid: My point.

  25. 25.

    Amir Khalid

    April 1, 2021 at 3:47 am

    @TriassicSands:

    “Reality” TV shows like Apprentice are actually fiction; they are much more scripted than their producers care to admit. Donald Trump was fictionalised in that show as an able and successful businessman, which never gibed with the reality of his long stretch of business failures.

  26. 26.

    lgerard

    April 1, 2021 at 3:48 am

    How can it be extortion when there is no quid pro quo?

    Didn’t we learn that from Fox last year?

  27. 27.

    mrmoshpotato

    April 1, 2021 at 3:50 am

    New twist: Washington Examiner appears to have materials showing scheme to get Matt Gaetz to help free an ex-FBI agent in Iran by saying the FBI has photos of him in an “sexual orgy with underage prostitues.”

    What does this sentence even mean?!?!

    Oh fuck it!  Fucker Carlson, Gaetz (yes “Farts” autoknowswhat’sup), Hannity and the Kremlin’s orange shitstain can all go fuck themselves on the Sun.

  28. 28.

    lgerard

    April 1, 2021 at 3:53 am

    This guy Joel Greenberg  is a real master of the universe.

    What do you do when you’ve been arrested for embezzlement, malfeasance and identity theft and are out on bail?

    You bribe a crooked SBA employee to get some fraudulent bank loans!

  29. 29.

    Steeplejack

    April 1, 2021 at 3:55 am

    Whoa! Watching Cannon on Quinn Martin Theater (MeTV early hours), and some no-name band just did a snippet of “Marrakesh Express” in a scene at a club (episode from January 1973). Rare to hear a real song on these shows. Although I will say that a few months ago I glimpsed Buffalo Springfield in a similar snippet on Mannix from 1967.

  30. 30.

    Bruce K in ATH-GR

    April 1, 2021 at 4:01 am

    Gaetz and his “you know what it’s like to go through what I’m going through” schtick sounds a lot like some arrogant high-profile Twitch streamer saying “come on, everybody who’s ever played online games has called someone a ni*CLANG* at some point, so bashing me for doing it is utter hypocrisy” (my apologies to POC for the slur and to Mel Brooks for stealing his joke).

    And yeah, this whole mess sounds like something that Carl Hiaasen or Dave Barry would have written, but not published because their editors would have bounced it back to them because the absurdity was just too much to swallow.

  31. 31.

    Amir Khalid

    April 1, 2021 at 4:03 am

    @Steeplejack:
    The title character of Mannix was depicted as Armenian-American. I’ve sometimes wondered, is Mannix really an Armenian name?

  32. 32.

    Martin

    April 1, 2021 at 4:04 am

    @tokyokie: The credits are part of the contract, and are often a requirement by the union. Movies aren’t really corporate exercises where all the people involved in the movie are on the salary of the studio. They’re basically all contractors, and the credits are part of how they advertise for other work. It’s their resume, and they can prove they worked on a given production.

    By being credited, its harder to underpay them. Its harder to break the conditions of the contract.

    Source: my wife has a close friend who has given stand-up-give-the-big-thank-you Oscar speeches.

  33. 33.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    April 1, 2021 at 4:06 am

    @Amir Khalid: As Mnemosyne pointed out, The Apprentice  was not a reality show, it was a game show.

     

  34. 34.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    April 1, 2021 at 4:12 am

    @Amir Khalid: It’s not an Armenian family name, they always end in “ian” or “yan”.   It doesn’t sound much like an Armenian given name either, though I’ve know Armenians with the given names of Arson and Muron.

    ETA: About 25% of the population of Glendale is of Armenian heritage.

  35. 35.

    Steeplejack

    April 1, 2021 at 4:17 am

    @Amir Khalid:

    “Mannix” is not an Armenian name. It is English-Irish and a natural private-eye name.

  36. 36.

    Anne Laurie

    April 1, 2021 at 4:18 am

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: My assumption would be that the family changed ‘Manoogian’ to ‘Mannix’ at Ellis Island.

    Heck, a tv show in that era wouldn’t have accepted ‘Manoogian’ as a proper tough-guy private eye name, would they?

  37. 37.

    Steeplejack

    April 1, 2021 at 4:24 am

    @Anne Laurie:

    My assumption is that the Armenian angle was some semi-random ego fluffing for Mike Connors thrown in as occasional background filler. It’s not like there was a lot of “world-building” going on in these shows.

  38. 38.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    April 1, 2021 at 4:47 am

    @Anne Laurie: If they did come though Ellis Island it was right before it closed, there was little Armenian immigration to the US until the Armenian genocide in the early 20’s.  Most then settled in Fresno, now days most new immigrants tend to settle here in Glendale or Little Armenia in East Hollywood.

  39. 39.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    April 1, 2021 at 4:48 am

    @Steeplejack: Tend to agree.

  40. 40.

    montanareddog

    April 1, 2021 at 4:54 am

    @Steeplejack: My memory may be failing me here but I seem to remember that Kojak started out as a Polish-American, who morphed into a Greek-American during the life of the series.

  41. 41.

    Steeplejack

    April 1, 2021 at 4:59 am

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    Ellis Island didn’t close down until 1954. And there was a pulse of Armenian immigration in the 1890s, although nowhere near as big as after the genocide in the 1910s.

  42. 42.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    April 1, 2021 at 5:01 am

    @Steeplejack: After 1924 it was primarily a detention center for immigrants, not a processing center(per Wikipedia).

     

  43. 43.

    sukabi

    April 1, 2021 at 5:18 am

    @Amir Khalid: I say, give him a bigger shovel.

  44. 44.

    sukabi

    April 1, 2021 at 5:20 am

    @NotMax: He’s already done that…released a statement to the effect that it was inhumane to raise taxes on the wealthy to pay for it.

  45. 45.

    Basilisc

    April 1, 2021 at 6:40 am

    Well, at least it’s a refreshing change from the “I didn’t know she was 17!” defense.

  46. 46.

    NotMax

    April 1, 2021 at 6:47 am

    @tokyokie

    Ever see the end credits on a film crowdfunded by Kickstarter or the like? Yes, every one of thousands of names* who contributed scrolls by.

    *including nyms, so amongst the mass of print one can (if so inclined) see such as Flatulus IX, or Korndogzrule.

    less inclined to stay all the way through them if my old man’s bladder is screaming at me.

    That’s what the pause button is for, innit?

    :)

  47. 47.

    Shalimar

    April 1, 2021 at 7:03 am

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: Gaetz is a politician who thinks if he brazens his way through the public relations problem, his legal trouble will go away.  He shows no sign of using his legal training.  Even lawyers representing themselves aren’t this stupid.

  48. 48.

    satby

    April 1, 2021 at 7:13 am

    Love the shout out to John D MacDonald. The entire Gaetz mess would be at home in a Travis McGee novel, but better written and more plausible.

  49. 49.

    Shalimar

    April 1, 2021 at 7:22 am

    @satby: Gaetz’s part in it sounds straight from a Travis McGee novel.  Greenberg reached overkill by the 3rd or 4th crime and kept snowballing.  There’s no way a writer would waste that many bizarre ideas on one criminal and novel.

  50. 50.

    SiubhanDuinne

    April 1, 2021 at 7:24 am

    @Anne Laurie:

    My assumption would be that he was Armenian on his mother’s side only.

  51. 51.

    Booger

    April 1, 2021 at 7:31 am

    @Amir Khalid: Wasn’t there a movie where one of the characters explained that a name wasn’t Armenian if you couldn’t rhyme it with ‘Armenian?’

  52. 52.

    burnspbesq

    April 1, 2021 at 8:12 am

    Without meaning to offend any alums of either institution, Gaetz’ resume (FSU undergrad, William & Mary law) doesn’t exactly scream BigLaw partner material.

  53. 53.

    Ken

    April 1, 2021 at 8:39 am

    @tokyokie: But you’ve got to stay through the credits, or you’ll miss the post-credits scene. Then you won’t know how what you’ve just seen ties in to two other apparently-unrelated movies from the same studio, nor will you get a hint of what’s in the sequel.

  54. 54.

    cope

    April 1, 2021 at 9:30 am

    Joel Greenberg was tax collector in my county so I have been following his, uh, “career” from the very beginning.  As my grandmother used to say, “Just one damned thing after another”.  It seems Mr. Greenberg is a compulsive criminal asshole and cannot help himself.  No, I did not vote for him.

    https://www.clickorlando.com/news/local/2021/03/31/former-seminole-county-tax-collector-accused-of-stealing-400000-in-taxpayer-money/

  55. 55.

    Omnes Omnibus

    April 1, 2021 at 9:33 am

    @burnspbesq: And BigLaw partners have a monopoly on basic legal competence?

  56. 56.

    Ruckus

    April 1, 2021 at 9:55 am

    @Omnes Omnibus: 
    I’d have to agree with you and from personal experience they don’t have a monopoly on the stupid either.

  57. 57.

    WaterGirl

    April 1, 2021 at 10:00 am

    @Amir Khalid: I beg to differ.  I think Gaetz needs to keep talking. :-)

  58. 58.

    jonas

    April 1, 2021 at 10:05 am

    @TriassicSands: ​
      I never saw a single episode of any of the Apprentice shows, but What’s His Name’s myriad business failures and his personnel choices as president make the premise of the show laughable.

    People who were involved with the program unanimously report that Trump was a befuddled idiot the entire time, routinely used racist and sexist language, and that the producers (i.e. Mark Burnett) had to work overtime to edit the thing in a way that made it look like Trump had any clue what the fuck he was doing. They were good at their jobs. It got him elected president.

  59. 59.

    artem1s

    April 1, 2021 at 12:54 pm

    @Kent:

    It always astonishes me when these folks with absolutely sordid pasts, habits, and business practices go into politics.

    It has always been a thing on a more local level.  Some local yahoo with a bunch of car dealerships or a big local contractor decides he wants to prove he can make a local government work for him like a business. Usually they are working hand in fist with the local sheriff who looks the other way on the small scandals and actively cleans up the big messes.  Some of them manage to keep their ego in check and never go beyond city or county level government.  But occasionally you have someone who gets caught after decades pulling this crap at the state level. Householder got caught taking bribes to pass legislation that cost Ohio households millions and put that money in First Energy’s pocket. Hell I bet most of the posters here could tell you about a local politician who was convicted of something within the last year or two.  Gaetz is only an anomaly because even though he’s obviously a moron, he didn’t get caught earlier because he managed to skip the local level and go straight to the big leagues.

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