Matt Gaetz

Matthew Louis Gaetz II ( ; born May 7, 1982) is an American lawyer and politician who has served as the U.S. representative for since 2017. A Republican, he has been described as an ally of former president Donald Trump, as well as a proponent of far-right politics.Sources describing Gaetz as "far-right" include:
* "Far-right candidates like Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Matt Gaetz..."
* "Former special forces officer Kent has campaigned with far right U.S. representative Matt Gaetz of Florida..."
* "Far-right congressman Matt Gaetz revealed more..."
* "The two far-right members of Congress att Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greenebilled the event as an “America First” rally..."
* "Yesterday, as Forbes reported, the far-right congressman att Gaetzwent a little further."
* "One of their members att Gaetz of Florida, another far-right congressman.."

The son of prominent Florida politician Don Gaetz, Gaetz was raised in Fort Walton Beach, Florida. After graduating from the William & Mary Law School, he briefly worked in private practice before running for state representative. He served in the Florida House of Representatives from 2010 until 2016, and received national attention for defending Florida's controversial "stand-your-ground law". In 2016, he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, and was reelected in 2018, 2020, and 2022.

In late 2020, the Department of Justice opened an investigation into allegations that Gaetz had a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old girl in exchange for money in violation of federal sex trafficking laws, which Gaetz denied. In April 2021, the House Ethics Committee also announced an investigation. A September 2022 ''Washington Post'' article reported that career prosecutors have recommended not to charge Gaetz in the sex-trafficking investigation, telling Justice Department superiors that a conviction is unlikely in part because of credibility questions about the two central witnesses.

Early life and education

Matthew Louis Gaetz II was born on May 7, 1982, in Hollywood, Florida, to Victoria (née Quertermous) and Don Gaetz, who later became a prominent local politician.

Gaetz grew up near Fort Walton Beach, and graduated from Niceville High School. He graduated from Florida State University in 2003 with a Bachelor of Science in interdisciplinary sciences and from the William & Mary Law School in 2007 with a Juris Doctor. Gaetz was admitted to the Florida Bar on February 6, 2008. In October 2021, the Florida bar suspended Gaetz from practicing law due to unpaid fees.

Gaetz's father represented parts of Northwest Florida as a member of the Florida State Senate from 2006 to 2016 and was Senate president from 2012 to 2014. Gaetz's grandfather, Stanley Jerome (Jerry) Gaetz, was the mayor of Rugby, North Dakota, and a candidate for lieutenant governor of North Dakota at the 1964 North Dakota Republican Party state convention, where he died of a heart attack.

After graduating from William & Mary Law School, Gaetz worked at the law firm Keefe, Anchors & Gordon (now AnchorsGordon) in Fort Walton Beach.

Florida House of Representatives

In March 2010, after Republican state representative Ray Sansom's resignation on corruption charges in February 2010, Gaetz ran in the special election to succeed Sansom in the 4th district, which included southern Santa Rosa County and Okaloosa County. In a crowded Republican primary that included Craig Barker, Kabe Woods, Jerry G. Melvin, and Bill Garvie, Gaetz won with 43 percent of the vote. In the special general election, Gaetz defeated Democratic nominee Jan Fernald with 66 percent of the vote. During his campaign, Gaetz received almost $480,000 in contributions, about five times more than anyone else in the field, and almost 50 times more than Fernald, including $100,000 of his own money.

Gaetz was unopposed for a full term in 2010. In 2012, following the reconfiguration of Florida House of Representatives districts, Gaetz's district no longer contained any of Santa Rosa County. He was reelected unopposed in 2012 and 2014.

While serving in the state house, Gaetz and state senator Joe Negron proposed legislation that would hasten the execution of many inmates on Florida's death row by requiring the governor to sign a death warrant for those who had exhausted their appeals. He also joined state senator Greg Evers in proposing legislation to eliminate the federal ethanol content mandate that 10 percent of gasoline sold in Florida contain ethanol; Governor Rick Scott signed the legislation in May 2013.

Gaetz was one of two members to vote against a Florida bill against revenge porn in 2015, after having successfully blocked the bill previously.

Florida House speaker Will Weatherford announced that he would order hearings on the stand-your-ground law. Gaetz, the chairman of the Criminal Justice Subcommittee, was tasked with reviewing the legislation; he announced before hearings that he would not support changing "one damn comma", but said he would listen to both sides' testimony. After the hearings, he authored legislation to allow defendants who successfully used a stand-your-ground defense during trial to be able to expunge relevant information from their criminal records.

When his subcommittee was considering legislation that would keep suspects' mugshots off the Internet until their convictions, Gaetz brought up his 2008 arrest and non-conviction, arguing that his mistakes made him who he is and that publicly available mugshots "could be a problem for those unaccustomed to publicity."

U.S. House of Representatives

Elections

In 2013, Gaetz announced that, in 2016, he would run for the 1st district State Senate seat held by his father, Don Gaetz, who was term-limited in 2016. On March 21, 2016, Gaetz withdrew from the race, choosing instead to run for the U.S. House seat representing Florida's 1st congressional district; the incumbent, Jeff Miller, had announced 11 days earlier that he would not seek reelection.

On August 30, 2016, Gaetz won the Republican primary with 35.7 percent of the vote to Greg Evers's 21.5 percent and Cris Dosev's 20.6 percent, along with five other candidates. This virtually assured Gaetz of victory in the general election; with a Cook Partisan Voting Index of R+22, the 1st is Florida's most Republican district, and one of the most Republican in the nation.

In the November 8 general election, Gaetz defeated Democratic nominee Steven Specht with 69 percent of the vote. He is only the seventh person to represent this district since 1933 (the district was numbered the 3rd before 1963).

Though a financial disclosure form Gaetz filed in 2016 showed a net worth of $388,000, he donated $200,000 of his own money to his congressional campaign. He also resigned from two Florida House political action committees he had started and chaired; the PACs closed down and transferred $380,000 to a federal super-PAC, North Florida Neighbors, whose purpose was to support Gaetz's congressional campaign.

Tenure

On September 25, 2016, following the death of Miami Marlins pitcher José Fernández, Gaetz criticized the athletes protesting during the national anthem in a tweet.

Gaetz was listed as a member of the moderate Republican Main Street Partnership from at least January to June 2017.

Gaetz served as a top campaign adviser to Ron DeSantis during his 2018 gubernatorial campaign. He managed debate preparations and "drafted early administration organizational charts, helped steer early policy decisions and played a huge role in DeSantis' appointments", according to ''Politico''.

In January 2018, Gaetz invited alt-right Holocaust denier Charles C. Johnson to attend Donald Trump's State of the Union address. Johnson previously raised money for the neo-Nazi website '' The Daily Stormer''. Gaetz defended Johnson in an interview, saying that Johnson was neither a Holocaust denier nor a white supremacist.

After the 2020 State of the Union Address, Gaetz filed an ethics complaint against Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, claiming she had committed a "flagrant violation of decorum" and perhaps broken the law when she ripped up her copy of the speech.

In February 2020, Gaetz announced that he will no longer accept campaign contributions from federal political action committees.

On January 10, 2021, House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy complained on a phone call that Gaetz was unnecessarily "putting people in jeopardy", noting that the rioters at the U.S. Capitol on January 6 "came prepared with rope". The conversation was reported in April 2022.

In 2021, Gaetz and Georgia representative Marjorie Taylor Greene began a nationwide " America First Tour" on May 7, in The Villages, Florida. During the tour, Gaetz and Greene repeated debunked claims of fraud in the 2020 election, attacked Big Tech and, at one event, claimed that the Second Amendment was for "maintaining, within the citizenry, the ability to maintain an armed rebellion against the government, if that becomes necessary." As a consequence of the controversy the speakers had generated, their appearance at a conference site at Laguna Hills, in Orange County, California, was canceled.

In June 2021, Gaetz was one of 21 House Republicans to vote against a resolution to give the Congressional Gold Medal to police officers who defended the U.S. Capitol on January 6.

Ethics controversies

On February 26, 2019, the night before the scheduled public hearing of Michael Cohen, Trump's former personal attorney, before the House Oversight Committee, Gaetz directed a tweet to Cohen that implied without evidence that Cohen had had multiple extramarital affairs and also suggested his wife might be unfaithful while he was imprisoned due to new information disclosed to her. Other members of Congress saw the tweet as an attempt to intimidate a witness. Gaetz initially defended his tweet, saying it was part of "witness testing, not witness tampering" and "I don't threaten anybody." Asked to clarify, he said his "tweet speaks for itself". After sharp criticism from other members of Congress and an implicit rebuke by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, Gaetz deleted the tweet and posted a tweet in which he apologized. Despite not being a member of the House Oversight Committee, Gaetz appeared at Cohen's hearing, saying that he wanted to observe and ask questions. During the hearing, U.S. Virgin Islands delegate Stacey Plaskett, a member of the Oversight Committee, recommended that Gaetz be referred to both the House Ethics Committee and criminal prosecutors for witness intimidation and tampering. After the hearing, Gaetz reportedly texted an apology to Cohen, who thanked him for it. The Florida Bar opened an investigation into Gaetz for the tweet, as did the House Ethics Committee. In August 2019, the Florida Bar announced it had found no probable cause that Gaetz had violated its rules.

In April 2020, ''Politico'' reported that Gaetz had spent nearly $200,000 of taxpayer funds renting an office from Collier Merrill, a Pensacola real estate developer and restaurateur and longtime friend, adviser, campaign donor, and legal client. Gaetz and Merrill separately told ''Politico'' that Gaetz paid below-market rent for the space, but Gaetz later said that the rent was "at or below market rate." House rules explicitly disallow below-market rentals, and require that parties to such leases "have othad, r continue to have, a professional or legal relationship (except as a landlord and tenant)." On July 1, 2020, the Office of Congressional Ethics notified Gaetz it had terminated its review of the lease arrangements.

In July 2020, ''Politico'' reported that its investigation had found expenditures by Gaetz that appeared to violate the House ethics rules: spending tens of thousands of dollars for a speech-writing consultant and having a private company install a television studio in his father's home in Niceville, Florida, which Gaetz uses when he appears on television. Gaetz's office acknowledged that he spent $28,000 on speech-writing services, which is prohibited by House rules except in special circumstances and with prior approval from congressional officials, but said that it was a clerical error that it would fix. Of the television studio, Gaetz said that the company received $100 per month from his office, an amount not reported in his congressional spending records, and also charged television networks each time a network connected to the studio. A statement from Gaetz's office said the arrangement complied with House rules, and that during the setup process, his office consulted with the House Ethics Committee and the House Administration Committee.

In late February 2021, Gaetz and a dozen other Republican House members skipped votes and enlisted others to vote for them, citing the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. But he and the other members were actually attending the Conservative Political Action Conference, which was held at the same time as their absences. In response, the Campaign for Accountability, an ethics watchdog group, filed a complaint with the House Committee on Ethics and requested an investigation into Gaetz and the other lawmakers.

In August 2022, Gaetz criticized President Joe Biden for forgiving up to $10,000 of student loan debt for eligible borrowers. Gaetz was criticized for hypocrisy because he had $476,000 of debt from his PPP loan forgiven.

Committee assignments

* Committee on Armed Services
** Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations
** Subcommittee on Tactical Air and Land Forces
* Committee on the Judiciary
** Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property and the Internet
** Subcommittee on Regulatory Reform, Commercial and Antitrust Law

Caucus memberships

* Freedom Caucus
* Republican Study Committee

Political positions

Gaetz has self-identified as a "libertarian populist". Observers have described his views as far right. Gaetz was an early supporter of Donald Trump and his appeal to the Republican Party base, echoing his talking points. In several commercials during his 2016 congressional campaign, Gaetz promised to "kill Muslim terrorists and build the wall".

In a September 2022 episode of Steve Bannon's ''War Room'' podcast, Gaetz said that Republicans should prioritize "impeachment inquiries" against Democrats "to investigate them and to hold them accountable" if Republicans won the 2022 U.S. House of Representatives elections. He added, "it should be investigations f Democratsfirst— ndpolicy, bill-making, to support the lobbyists and the PACs, as a far, far diminished priority."

Cannabis

Gaetz has introduced legislation to reclassify cannabis from Schedule I to Schedule III under the Controlled Substances Act. He has also introduced legislation to loosen federal restrictions on the cultivation of cannabis for research purposes. Gaetz has criticized the federal government for having "lied to the American people for a generation" about cannabis's medical benefits. As a member of the Florida House, he sponsored a bill, eventually signed into law, to expand the state's Right to Try Act to include the medical use of cannabis. In September 2017, Gaetz keynoted the American Medical Marijuana Physicians Association's annual conference.

In November 2019, Gaetz was one of only two Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee to vote for the Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement (MORE) Act, which among other reforms would remove cannabis from the Controlled Substances Act. He was also the only Republican cosponsor of the bill (of 55 cosponsors) at the time of its passage. Gaetz has introduced the STATES Act to prevent federal interference in states that have legalized cannabis for medical or recreational purposes. Gaetz has said he has had multiple conversations with President Trump about cannabis policy.

Donald Trump

On February 23, 2017, worried about protesters disrupting his appearance at his town hall in Pace, Florida, Gaetz prepared what his staffers called a nonverbal town hall. He printed out part of his speech onto giant boards that he would hold up if he was unable to speak. Gaetz arrived 30 minutes late to the meeting, where at least 500 constituents crowded into a bowling alley. At the meeting, he was questioned about his relationship with Trump, his stance on repealing the Affordable Care Act, and his proposal to abolish the Environmental Protection Agency. He said that Trump should release his tax returns, but stopped short of saying Congress should subpoena them. Gaetz closed his town hall by shouting Trump's 2016 campaign slogan, "Make America Great Again".

In April 2018, ''Politico'' called Gaetz "one of the most enthusiastic defenders of President Trump on cable news" and a "proud Trump protégé". Aaron Blake of ''The Washington Post'' called him one of Congress' "most controversial members", and one who has "unabashedly aligned himself with Trump on basically all things."

In May 2018, Gaetz was one of 18 House Republicans to vote to nominate Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize for his role in peace talks with North Korea.

Appearing on '' The View'' in February 2020, shortly before Trump associate Roger Stone was sentenced, Gaetz said he would support a pardon for Stone.

Gaetz is a member of the House Judiciary Committee, but not of the Intelligence, Foreign Affairs, or Oversight and Reform Committees, and so was not allowed to join lawmakers' closed-door deposition of former White House Russia aide Fiona Hill in October 2019. He told reporters that, since his committee oversees impeachment, he should have been allowed to be part of depositions related to the Trump impeachment inquiry.

On April 6, ''The New York Times'' reported that during the final weeks of Trump's presidency, Gaetz privately asked the White House for a blanket pardon for himself and some unknown congressional allies for any crimes they may have committed. The White House reportedly never seriously considered the request because it was decided that issuing preemptive pardons would set a bad precedent. The ''Times'' also reported that aides had told Trump of the request. On April 7, Trump denied that Gaetz had asked him for a pardon and noted that Gaetz "totally denied the accusations against him". On April 8, it was revealed that Trump had reportedly wanted to defend Gaetz, but that his advisors talked him out of it due to the seriousness of the allegations.

Mueller investigation

In November 2017, Gaetz introduced a congressional resolution calling for Robert Mueller to recuse himself as special counsel because of what were said to be conflicts of interest. He also asked for a special counsel investigation into the Federal Bureau of Investigation's handling of the Hillary Clinton email controversy, undue interference by U.S. attorney general Loretta Lynch in the investigation, and the Russian state corporation Rosatom's acquisition of Uranium One during Mueller's time as FBI director. Gaetz said he did not trust Mueller to lead the investigation because of Mueller's alleged involvement in approval of the Uranium One deal and alleged close relationship with dismissed FBI director James Comey, a probable person of interest in a proposed new investigation.

After Ohio congressman Jim Jordan denied that he was aware of the sexual abuse of Ohio State University wrestlers during the period when Jordan was a coach there, Gaetz said that the allegations came from people in the " deep state" and were intended to reduce the credibility of Jordan's criticism of Mueller's investigation of the Trump campaign and Russia.

Gaetz said of then-U.S. attorney general Jeff Sessions that "over at the Department of Justice, he's got Stockholm syndrome, he's become sympathetic with his captors over there in the Deep State."

During Mueller's testimony to two congressional committees on July 24, 2019, Gaetz told him, "if Russians were lying to Christopher Steele to undermine our confidence in our newly elected president, that would be precisely in your purview because you stated in your opening that the organizing principle was to fully and thoroughly investigate Russian interference. But you weren't interested in whether the Russians interfered through Steele—and if Steele was lying, then you should have charged him with lying like you charged a variety of other people."

First impeachment of Donald Trump

In October 2019, Gaetz organized a "storming" of a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility on Capitol Hill by about two dozen Republican congressmen, including House minority whip Steve Scalise, in an effort to sit in on and hear the deposition of a Pentagon official during the impeachment inquiry against Trump. The congressmen's cell phones and other devices put the secure facility, and U.S. national security, at risk.

One committee member said, "It was the closest thing I've seen around here to mass civil unrest as a member of Congress." House Homeland Security Committee chairman Bennie Thompson of Mississippi wrote to the House sergeant-at-arms about Gaetz and others, requesting that he take action regarding their "unprecedented breach of security". South Carolina's senior U.S. senator, Lindsey Graham, admonished the House members, calling them "nuts" for having made a "run on the SCIF." Ohio representative Jim Jordan said, "The members have just had it, and they want to be able to see and represent their constituents and find out what's going on." A day later, Jordan appeared on Fox News to justify the intrusion, saying of the chair of the committee: "Adam Schiff is doing this unfair, partisan process in secret and our members finally said, 'Enough'. We're so frustrated. They reached a boiling point and these guys marched in and said we want to know what's going on." In the 116th Congress, Pelosi, who is a committee member ex officio, appointed Schiff and 12 Democratic members of the House Intelligence Committee. House minority leader Kevin McCarthy, also an ex officio member, appointed the ranking member, Devin Nunes, and eight other Republicans to the committee. Each side got equal time to question witnesses. The disruption delayed Deputy Assistant Defense Secretary Laura Cooper's testimony by many hours.

Second impeachment of Donald Trump

On January 7, 2021, after a pro-Trump mob attacked the Capitol, Gaetz falsely said there was "pretty compelling evidence from a facial recognition company showing that some of the people who breached the Capitol today were not Trump supporters" but were rather "masquerading as Trump supporters, and in fact were members of the violent terrorist group antifa". Gaetz acknowledged during his speech on the House floor that he did not know "if the reports are true." Gaetz's suggestion that "antifa" was to blame for the attack on the Capitol is false and baseless.

Joel Valdez, a senior communications aide to Gaetz, posted a video on Parler hours before the storming of the Capitol with the caption "From the top of the Capitol office buildings, WE HEAR YOU LOUD AND CLEAR! #StopTheSteal". Gaetz voted against the second impeachment of Donald Trump.

Economy

Gaetz voted for the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. He acknowledged that the bill's pass-through tax deduction would benefit Trump, but added, "so many Americans benefit when commercial real estate becomes easier and more accessible."

Environment

In 2016, Gaetz acknowledged global warming but said he disagrees with the scientific consensus on climate change that human activity is the primary cause. In April 2017, the Center for American Progress and Vice Media said Gaetz was a climate change denier, citing his 2016 statements.

In January 2017, Gaetz proposed legislation to abolish the Environmental Protection Agency, claiming that it hurts small businesses via the costs associated with compliance.

In November 2017, Gaetz joined the bipartisan Climate Solutions Caucus. He said he advocated technological innovation and economic incentives that address climate change, and increased federal funds for global warming research by NASA, NOAA and universities, but remained opposed to increased environmental regulation.

In 2019, Gaetz introduced the bipartisan Super Pollutants Act, which aimed to slow climate change by regulating greenhouses gases, especially black carbon, hydrofluorocarbons, and methane. A press release stated, "These short-lived climate pollutants, also called super pollutants, are significantly more potent than carbon dioxide."

Foreign policy

Myanmar

In 2021, Gaetz was one of 14 House Republicans to vote against a measure condemning the Myanmar coup d'état that overwhelmingly passed, for reasons reported to be unclear.

Middle East

In June 2021, Gaetz was one of 49 House Republicans to vote to repeal the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002

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