Rep. Matt Gaetz’s (R-FL) PR strategy in the wake of the revelation that he is under investigation for alleged sex trafficking has been baffling to observers, as his enthusiastic media availability has done less to clear his name than to offer up confusing subplots and introduce potential further crimes into the mix.
Parse parse parse.
Gaetz paid for plane tickets, not for sex.
Gaetz only had sex with a 17-year old, but slept elsewhere once the coke wore off.
Dude, even Barr’s guys hated your preening posturing guts…
A bit OT, but well within the ballpark.
But if you can’t do it zero times, then ideally it happens only once. It happens only once, because the moment you do it, the person you show it to responds the way a person should respond. You produce your photograph to your colleague, and your colleague looks at you and says, “Never show that to anyone, ever again. Go home and rethink your life. I do not feel closer to you. If anything, I want to have you removed forcibly from my presence by strong gentlemen whose biceps are tattooed with ‘MOM.’ The fact that you thought this would make us closer makes me question every decision in my life that has led me to this point. Leave now and never come back.”
All the House GOP (with the exception of Liz Cheney) have their zippers at half staff in solidarity with Matt Gaetz.
(Nelson) did say that he had reached out to Gaetz’s office to let them know about the conversation with the FBI.
Reminds of Carter Page cluing the FSB into his interview with the FBI.
I suppose it lets us all know where his loyalties lie.
he’s “sure some partisan crooks in Merrick Garland’s Justice Department want to pervert the truth and the law to go after me”
The partisan crook whose office started the investigation into your sex trafficking was named Bill Barr.
“First, I have never, ever paid for sex,” he wrote. “And second, I, as an adult man, have not slept with a 17-year-old.”
“The money wasn’t for the sex! It was for the rent on the apartment I provided her! And the lease payment on her BMW! And her bar tabs! And those clothes she’s wearing! Oh, and for that cruise she took with me!! But no money was spent for the sex!! Period!!!”
Our first Matt story today. I knew it would come sooner or later.
“The charges are that he was allegedly drinking a can of Diet Coke while committing the crime. He was actually drinking Cherry Coke at the time, so it proves that he didn’t commit the crime”.
Gaetz also penned an op-ed for the Washington Examiner published Monday, in which he maintains his innocence and says that he will not resign.
Good. I don’t want him to resign. I want him to hang on right up until it’s time for him to report to prison. If we’re lucky, he’ll stick around through campaign season next year and we can tie every GOPer in the country to him and his scandals.
Your daily emetic. 
Shorter Gaetz: “I never paid for sex with preteens! I was reimbursed by my campaign!”
It always surprises me how many people are willing to defend an obvious sociopath.
BTW, how does Q-Anon not swarm all over Gaetz at this point? Colin Jost nailed it on SNL:
I don’t really consider this Sgt. Schultz routine to be a defense.
Clearly unschooled in the art of dissembling, the idiot Nelson went ahead and answered directly all the questions he was asked. Any Republican worthy of the name knows that that’s a big no-no.
Not a lawyer, but I suppose you are pointing out the obvious, that plane tickets, hotel rooms, fancy restaurants, etc., are things with monetary value. It’s a distinction without a difference; if this 17 year old kid had to pay for them herself, she’d have thousands of dollars less in her pocket.
Completey agreed and I believe the DoJ will see it the same way.
He paid for something that enabled sex. He slept somewhere at some point. He didn’t know she was 17, he didn’t ask, she didn’t tell, it didn’t come up, it couldn’t have come up because it didn’t happen, and even if it did, having conversation is not illegal.