U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., speaks at the Republican National Convention on Monday, Aug. 24, 2020 (RNC video screenshot)
U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., is charging that the New York Times interfered with an investigation of the attempted extortion of his family by claiming in a report that he is under investigation for "possible sexual relationship with a girl, 17."
The newspaper's headline was unleashed on Tuesday, prompting Gaetz to appear on Tucker Carlson's show on Fox News, where he accused a former FBI employee, now a lawyer, of demanding $25 million from his family in order to make that investigation go away.
The lawyer, David McGee, told the Washington Post that Gaetz's statements are "totally false" and are an attempt to "distract" from the investigation.
Gaetz said he was the victim of that $25 million attempted extortion plot, accusing McGee of illegal acts.
The Republican congressman and ally of Donald Trump has been a firebrand in his opposition to Democrats and their agenda, scorching the Democrat party for its advocacy for violence and objecting to electors during the 2020 presidential race from states that didn't run clean elections.
It's been documented that in multiple states, state officials who were not authorized to do so changed voting procedures and requirements to accommodate mail-in ballots, even though the Constitution requires state legislatures to specific those voting standards.
The Gateway Pundit explained there apparently were allegations about the congressman and a 17-year-old girl.
The Gateway Pundit's sources said it was unclear how Gaetz encountered such a girl, and the congressman flatly denied she exists.
"The investigation was opened in the final months of the Trump administration under Attorney General William P. Barr, the two people said. Given Mr. Gaetz’s national profile, senior Justice Department officials in Washington — including some appointed by Mr. Trump — were notified of the investigation, the people said," according to the Gateway Pundit.
"The Gateway Pundit spoke with a source close to Matt Gaetz who told us this report is completely false. Gaetz is not the target of the investigation. We were also told none of the women he was seeing were underage," the commentary explained. "It’s not a surprise the left is after Gaetz since he is such an effective communicator and staunch Trump supporter."
"The allegations were as searing as they are false," the congressman told Axios.
Gaetz told Carlson: "What is happening is extortion of me and my family involving a former Department of Justice official. On March 16th, my father got a text message demanding a meeting wherein a person demanded $25 million in exchange for making horrible sex trafficking allegations of me go away."
He said his family immediately contacted the FBI and his father wore "a wire" to capture the threats being made.
Those are the recordings he now wants the FBI and DOJ to release.
He said the Times' publication of its allegations interfered with a plan that had been made for a "down payment" on the extortion to be paid on Wednesday.
"This former Department of Justice official tomorrow [Wednesday] was supposed to be contacted by my father so that specific instructions could be given regarding the wiring of $4.5 million as a down payment on this bribe. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that tonight somehow The New York Times is leaking this information, smearing me, and ruining the investigation."
Gaetz told the Gateway Pundit, "Over the past several weeks my family and I have been victims of an organized criminal extortion involving a former DOJ official seeking $25 million while threatening to smear my name. We have been cooperating with federal authorities in this matter and my father has even been wearing a wire at the FBI’s direction to catch these criminals. The planted leak to the New York Times tonight was intended to thwart that investigation. No part of the allegations against me are true, and the people pushing these lies are targets of the ongoing extortion investigation. I demand the DOJ immediately release the tapes, made at their direction, which implicate their former colleague in crimes against me based on false allegations."
McGee, a lawyer at Beggs & Lane, claimed in a Daily Mail report, "I have no connection with that case at all, other than, one of a thousand people who have heard the rumors."
McGee said if there is a tape, he should be played.
The Daily Mail said the allegations are part of a probe into a Florida official who was charged last year with sex trafficking a minor. But there have been no charges against Gaetz.
The report said McGee admitted talking with Gaetz's father, explaining it was "a pleasant conversation of a dad concerned about his son and the trouble his son was in."
Gaetz said the alleged scheme came to light on March 16 when his father received a text message "demanding a meeting wherein a person demanded $25 million in exchange for making horrible sex trafficking allegations against me go away."
Gaetz's father is Don Gaetz, who served in the Florida state Senate for years.
Times' reporter Katie Benner, in the Daily Mail, deflected Gaetz's charges, saying it was Gaetz who "destroyed and blown up an FBI investigation."
The report said, "Axios reported that it had seen screenshots of text messages, emails and documents from Gaetz purporting to show the alleged scheme."
Gaetz, in a fiery denunciation last winter, charged when Democrats impeached Trump for a second time, a campaign that ultimately failed, that it is Democrats who have lit "actual fires" in their attempts to destroy Trump's presidency, including through bogus "collusion" claims and an impeachment prompted by an anonymous anti-Trump whistleblower who once worked for Joe Biden.
"The speaker said to us just moments ago 'words matter,' but apparently those words don't matter when they're uttered by Democrats," he said back then. "When the gentlelady from Massachusetts calls for 'unrest in the streets.' When the gentlelady from California brazenly brags that she called for people to get in the faces of those who serve and support the president.
"I denounce political violence from all ends of the spectrum. But make no mistake, the left in America has incited far more political violence than the right. For months, our cities burned, police stations burned, our businesses were shattered, and they said nothing, or they cheer-led for it, they fundraised for it, and they allowed it to happen in the greatest country in the world."
He noted "some have cited the metaphor that the president lit the flame, but they lit actual flames, actual fires, and we had to put them out!"
In fact, Kamala Harris, then vice president-elect, raised funds for people arrested for rioting after the death of George Floyd. Other Democrats routinely praised the rioters responsible for an estimated $2 billion in damages.
George Washington University law professor and commentator Jonathan Turley noted this week that Democrats have a long record of making "inciting" statements they insist are innocent.
"Democrats are pushing this dangerously vague standard while objecting to their own statements being given incriminating meaning by critics. For example, conservatives have pointed to Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., calling for people to confront Republican leaders in restaurants; Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., insisted during 2020’s violent protests that 'there needs to be unrest in the streets,' while then-Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., said 'protesters should not let up' even as many protests were turning violent. They can all legitimately argue that their rhetoric was not meant to be a call for violence, but this is a standard fraught with subjectivity," he said.
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