Mother Jones – September 01, 2019

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to do with Gaetz, but combined with Gae-

tz’s narrow escape from criminal charges,

the incident reinforced his local reputation

as an “entitled ne’er-do-well,” as one local

paper described him.

that reputationdidn’t stop Gaetz from

seeking bigger things. Less than a year after

his drunk-driving arrest, he declared his can-

didacy for the state House seat in Florida’s

4 th District, which was about to be vacated

by House Speaker Ray Sansom, a friend of

Don Gaetz for whom Matt had worked as a

legislative aide during law school.

In April 2009, Sansom was indicted on

corruption charges, accused of tweaking

the state budget to funnel more than $25

million to Northwest Florida State College

in Niceville. Of those funds, $6 million was

earmarked to build a hangar at the Destin

airport for a jet company owned by one of

Sansom’s friends and donors, real estate de-

veloper Jay Odom. Odom was also a client

of Matt Gaetz, who handled Odom’s hangar

lease. (In 2013, Odom would be sentenced

to six months in prison for illegally fun-

neling $23,000 into former Arkansas Gov.

Mike Huckabee’s failed 2008 presidential

campaign. In the past decade, Odom has

contributed thousands of dollars to Gaetz’s

political campaigns. Odom did not respond

to an interview request.)

The corruption charges against Sansom

and Odom were dropped two years after

their indictments, but the prosecution

forced Sansom to resign in February 2010,

10 months before he would be term-limited

out. The governor scheduled the Republican

primary barely a month later. The timing

gave Gaetz a huge head start against oppo-

nents who lacked his father’s name recogni-

tion and fundraising network.

“Matt simply outworked his opponents,”

Don Gaetz told the Tampa Bay Times in

2013. “Perhaps people gave [to his cam-
      paign] thinking he was a chip off the old
      block. Perhaps that helped. But I can assure
      you that he didn’t get many contributions
      he could have because of the many lobby-
      ists who didn’t like me. It probably hurt him
      more than it helped.”
      The numbers disagree. Gaetz raised
      nearly $480,000—almost fi ve times more
      than any of his rivals in the gop primary
      and almost 50 times more than his Dem-
      ocratic challenger. Many people who had
      backed Don Gaetz donated to his son that

“This lawsuit reads like it was

researched and drafted by Sen Joyner...

and spell checked by Sen Bullard.”

“Consider this possibility: If President Trump

were to say, ‘I am now the fi rst female

president,’ who would celebrate that?”

In 2013, taking to

Twitter to mock a

participant in Florida’s

public assistance

program

Defending Trump’s

description of Haiti as

a “shithole” country in

January 2018

Menacing tweet

directed at Trump’s

former lawyer before

he testifi ed before

Congress

Responding to a 2015 bill he didn’t like by

appearing to question the literacy of two

black Florida state senators

Responding to the House

Ethics Committee’s

announcement in

June that it was

investigating Gaetz’s

alleged threat

against Cohen

Imagining what might

happen if a federal

transgender rights bill

were passed

MATT AS HELL

A roundup of Rep. Matt Gaetz’s most

outrageous comments

“Yesterday I saw a lady at Publix

use her ‘Access’ welfare card. Her

back was covered in tattoos. RT

if u support entitlement reform.”

“The conditions in Haiti are

deplorable, they are disgusting. I

mean, everywhere you look in Haiti,

it’s sheet metal and garbage.”

“The media is painting Khashoggi as

a ‘journalist’ rather than a political

participant. Don’t get me wrong,

I’m 100% opposed to killing people

for their politics, but idk that this is

journalism.”

“If members of Congress

want to spend their time

psychoanalyzing my

tweets, it’s certainly their

prerogative.”

“Since taking offi ce, President Trump has

worked tirelessly to apply maximum pressure

on North Korea to end its illicit weapons

programs and bring peace to the region.”

Tweeting after

Washington Post

columnist Jamal Khashoggi

was assassinated by

Saudi agents in Turkey in

October 2018

Joining 17 Republican

colleagues to nominate

Trump for the 2019 Nobel

Peace Prize

“Hey @MichaelCohen212 – Do your wife &

father-in-law know about your girlfriends?

Maybe tonight would be a good time for that

chat. I wonder if she’ll remain faithful when

you’re in prison. She’s about to learn a lot...”