White Male Privilege: Matt Gaetz Isn’t Being Criminally Charged Despite ‘Evidence’ He Paid Teen For Sex

Former Rep. Matt Gaetz has not been having his best political year despite his orangey-white nationalist messiah kicking, screaming, lying and bigot whispering his way back into the White House in November. Gaetz resigned from Congress after Donald Trump nominated him to serve as attorney general, but that all fell apart due to the lingering allegations that he paid numerous women for sex, including an underaged woman who was only 17. Well, the Justice Department may have closed the federal investigation into his sex trafficking allegations in February of last year, but the House Ethics Committee reported that it found evidence that Gaetz is guilty of nearly everything he was accused of.

The investigators found he paid for sex or drugs on at least 20 occasions while serving as a federal legislator, and that, in 2017, he paid to have sex with the aforementioned teenager. Furthermore, the committee reported that many of the transactions were facilitated by Joel Greenberg, a former Seminole County tax collector who is serving an 11-year prison sentence and cooperated with federal investigators.

“The Committee determined there is substantial evidence that Representative Gaetz violated House Rules and other standards of conduct prohibiting prostitution, statutory rape, illicit drug use, impermissible gifts, special favors or privileges, and obstruction of Congress,” the committee wrote in its report, according to CNN.

So, according to the investigating panelists, Gaetz is a drug abuser, statutory rapist and a participant in illegal prostitution, which might lead one to believe that, like the president-elect, he relied on his white male privilege to evade accountability while still claiming his party is the party of law and order and family values.

From CNN:

The panel investigated transactions Gaetz personally made, often using PayPal or Venmo, to more than a dozen women during his time in Congress, according to the report. Investigators also focused on a 2018 trip to the Bahamas – which they said “violated the House gift rule” – during which he “engaged in sexual activity” with multiple women, including one who described the trip itself as “the payment” for sex on the trip. On the same trip, he also took ecstasy, one woman on the trip told the committee.

The committee found that the sexual encounters were often organized by Greenberg through a website, SeekingArrangement.com. “Mr. Greenberg told the Committee that Representative Gaetz was aware that the women they had sex with and paid had met Mr. Greenberg through the ‘sugar dating’ website,” the panel wrote.

Congressional investigators found that Gaetz made payment to women using multiple platforms, including PayPal, Venmo and CashApp. The committee listed payments Gaetz made to 12 women, including to his former girlfriend, as well as Greenberg.

The committee wrote that Gaetz did not appear to negotiate specific payment amounts for sex with the women he paid. “Many of the women interviewed by the Committee were clear that there was a general expectation of sex,” investigators wrote.

“One woman who was paid more than $5,000 by Representative Gaetz between 2018 and 2019 told the Committee that ‘99 percent of the time that (Representative Gaetz and I) were hanging out, there was sex involved,’” the panel said.

Despite all of the evidence that the committee found that points to Gaetz being every bit of the degenerate and sexual deviant he was accused of being, panelists reported that they found no evidence that he violated any federal sex trafficking laws, even though he reportedly did transport prostitutes across state lines.

“Although Representative Gaetz did cause the transportation of women across state lines for purposes of commercial sex, the Committee did not find evidence that any of those women were under 18 at the time of travel, nor did the Committee find sufficient evidence to conclude that the commercial sex acts were induced by force, fraud, or coercion,” the committee wrote.

Of course, Gaetz is still denying all of it, and like most powerful men who are trying to explain away sex abuse allegations, his denial makes him out to simply be some youthful playboy having fun during his “single days.”

“In my single days, I often sent funds to women I dated – even some I never dated but who asked. I dated several of these women for years,” Gaetz said. “It’s embarrassing, though not criminal, that I probably partied, womanized, drank and smoked more than I should have earlier in life. I live a different life now.” (For the record, Gaetz would have been around 35 in 2017, when he was accused of paying a teen for sex — but, sure, let’s go with the “I was young and dumb” argument mixed with a hint of “boys will be boys.”)

Anyway, while white privilege did likely help Gaetz escape federal charges, it didn’t stop the House Ethics Committee report from being made public. Actually, according to CNN, the committee initially voted against publishing the report, but earlier this month, it reversed that decision and secretly voted to publish it to the dismay of panel Chairman Michael Guest, a Mississippi Republican.

“The decision to publish a report after his resignation breaks from the Committee’s long-standing practice, opens the Committee to undue criticism, and will be viewed by some as an attempt to weaponize the Committee’s process,” Guest said.

Yeah — and declining to publish those findings might be “viewed by some” as more evidence that white male government officials get protection civilians don’t get no matter what they have done.

It should be noted that while the committee reported that all of the women interviewed said they were not forced or coerced into having sex, it doesn’t mean no power dynamics were at play.

More from CNN:

The panel wrote that several women told the committee they would not voluntarily participate in the investigation, and some were “clear at first contact that they feared retaliation or were unwilling to voluntarily relive their interactions with Representative Gaetz.”

“While all the women that the Committee interviewed stated their sexual activity with Representative Gaetz was consensual, at least one woman felt that the use of drugs at the parties and events they attended may have ‘impair(ed their) ability to really know what was going on or fully consent,’” the panel wrote. “One woman said, ‘I think about it all the time … . I still see him when I turn on the tv and there’s nothing anyone can do. It’s frustrating to know I lived a reality that he denies.’”

Gotta love those MAGA family values, amirite?

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