Matt Gaetz has a very strange history when it comes to children and sex trafficking.
In 2017, an anti-sex trafficking bill unanimously passed the Senate. It also would have unanimously passed the House...except for a single “no” vote, by Congressman Matthew Gaetz.
This vote, by itself, was already remarkably strange. Lone “no” votes tend to be on matters of extreme principle. Barbara Lee voting against the AUMF. Russ Feingold being the only Senator to vote against the Patriot Act. Voting no on preventing sex trafficking was...quite a look. Gaetz offered an extremely weak defense of “more government is bad.”
This story grew even stranger when Gaetz angrily declared, during a 2020 debate regarding racial disparities in policing, that he had a non-white son. This claim, which contradicted Gaetz’s previous biographical information that he had provided of being single with no children, was “explained” by the fact that Gaetz had “adopted” a then-12-year-old boy in 2013. The child had made previous appearances in Gaetz’s social media, described variously as a student meeting with Gaetz, or a “helper.” The child’s mother was apparently deceased, and Gaetz had dated his sister (I mean the the child’s sister here, not Gaetz’s own sister, though at this point I’m not ruling anything out). Somehow, at the end of the relationship, Gaetz believed he had...adopted...her sibling. But not, of course, with any of the paperwork or legal formalities that real adoptions require. Nope, he had just...secretly acquired an orphaned 12-year-old child after dating that child’s sister. And 4 years later he’d be the only no vote against a sex trafficking bill.
Now, in the latest creepy turn, it turns out that this may not be the only child with whom Gaetz had a covert “relationship” of some sort. According to the NYT, the Barr DOJ has initiated an investigation into whether Gaetz had a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old girl and paid for her travel in a way that would violate the very same sex trafficking law he was the only one to vote against.
Gaetz has recently announced an interest in leaving the House and joining NewsMax. He’d probably be more interested if NewsMax has offices in countries without extradition treaties.