In today’s #vatniksoup I’ll introduce an American politician, lawyer and Florida Man, Matt Gaetz (@mattgaetz). He’s best-known as the US representative for the Republican Party, being a close ally of Donald Trump, and for voting against any aid for Ukraine.

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Gaetz is a lawyer by profession. He earned his Juris Doctor from the William & Mary Law School in 2007, and was admitted to the Florida Bar in Feb, 2008. In Oct, 2021, he was suspended from practicing law in Florida due to unpaid fees.

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During his career in politics, Gaetz has promoted several white nationalist figures.

In Jan, 2018, Matt invited holocaust-denier ("I agree with David Cole about Auschwitz and the gas chambers not being real", as he put it) Charles C. Johnson to attend Trump’s State of ...

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the Union address. Johnson is known for raising money for the neo-Nazi site The Daily Stormer, and being banned from Twitter after asking money to take out BLM figure DeRay Mckesson.

In 2018 and 2020 he attended political rallies with members of the Proud Boys, a ...

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...far-right organization designated as terrorist group in Canada and in New Zealand.

In 2021 he toured with Marjorie Taylor Greene in their nationwide “America First Tour”. The tour was all about the “stolen election” of 2020, and they went as far as saying that...

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..the 2nd Amendment was for “maintaining, within the citizenry, the ability to maintain an armed rebellion against the government, if that becomes necessary.”
In Feb, 2023, Gaetz invited an accused murderer Corey Ryan Beekman to lead a pledge of allegiance at a judiciary hearing.
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In Apr, 2020, he spent almost 200 000 USD of taxpayer money to rent an office from his campaign donor and real estate developer friend, Collier Merrill. He paid below-market rent for the space.

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In the same year he spent tens of thousand of dollars for speech-writing consultation, which is prohibited by the House rules. His office claimed that it was a “clerical error”.

In Feb, 2021, Matt and many other Republicans skipped voting and enlisted other people to...

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...vote for them while citing on the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The real reason why they couldn’t vote was because they were attending the Conservative Political Action Conference.

So, like most politicians, Gaetz could be described as a pathological liar.

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As is tradition with US politics, Gaetz diminishes politics into “Us vs Them” rhetoric, and his main pet peeve is “antifa”. He’s called for “patriots” to defend America against the “mob” (meaning antifa) who is trying to “destroy America”.

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During the nationwide BLM protests, Gaetz tweeted, “Now that we clearly see antifa as terrorists, can we hunt them down like we do those in the Middle East?” He blamed antifa for the US Capitol attack, suggesting that they were “masquerading as Trump supporters”.

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Incidentally, Joel Valdez, Gaetz’s senior communications aide was heavily involved in live reporting of the Capitol attack.

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In 2020 Gaetz got caught in the middle of a sex trafficking investigation, when his old pal, tax collector Joel Greenberg was indicted on sex trafficking a 17-year old girl and creating fake ID’s to facilitate his sex trafficking activities.

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This led the investigators to look into Gaetz’s activities, and later that year the Justice Dept. opened its investigation of Gaetz for allegedly sex trafficking the same 17-year-old girl.

Greenberg had written a confession letter in 2021 that said he and Gaetz paid to...

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...have sex with multiple women, including said 17-year-old. Venmo transactions showed that Matt had transferred 900 USD to Greenberg which was then send to three young women the next day. Greenberg’s confession letters also stated that Gaetz had allegedly asked him to ...

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..."hook up with college students" on a regular basis. The same investigation also revealed that Gaetz had snorted cocaine at a party with an escort who was hired with taxpayer money for a “no show” job at the Florida county office.

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Matt and his pals also made a trip to Bahamas in 2018. During the trip they hung out with many young women and also allegedly paid for sex with them.

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Matt ultimately evaded the charges in sex trafficking probe, and was not charged of these crimes despite the overwhelming evidence. Prior, Gaetz had even asked privately Trump for a blanket pardon for all of his and some of his unknown associates crimes.

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Trump denied that Gaetz had asked him for a pardon, but a day later it was revealed that he had reportedly wanted to defend Matt, but his advisors talked him out of it because of seriousness of the allegations.

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Greenberg also tried to get a pardon from Trump through a political consultant, Roger Stone, but was ultimately sentenced to 11 years in prison.

When it comes to Russo-Ukrainian War, Matt has clearly picked a side: in Feb, 2023, he, along with 10 other Republican members, ..
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...introduced a “Ukraine Fatigue” bill. The bill would formally call for and end to all aid from US to Ukraine. Before this, he’s voted against every bill that has been either for support of Ukraine or for condemnation of Russia’s actions.

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In Feb, 2023, Gaetz referred to an article published by a known Chinese-state controlled media, Global Times, suggesting that the “Azov Battallion had access to US weapons since 2018”.

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The under secretary of defense for policy, Colin Kahl, replied that “as a general matter, I don’t take Beijing’s propaganda at face value”.

Lauren Boebert wants Trump to pick Matt as his running mate, which - as scary as it sounds - wouldn’t be a big surprise.

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Ping: @Jose_Pagliery @sambrodey @SollenbergerRC