Florida Republican admits he's just in Congress to protect Trump
Matt Gaetz thinks he’s in Washington to be Trump’s human shield, not Florida’s congressman.
Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), one of Trump’s most ardent and frequently embarrassing defenders, said he would essentially be lost in Congress if he couldn’t shill for the unpopular president.
“I don’t know how I’d fit into this place in the absence of the president,” Gaetz told Buzzfeed, seemingly describing his own lack of purpose in a scenario with Trump out of the picture.
“I wake up every day and I do what I can to expose what I believe is an intractable bias among the people who are investigating the president,” he explained.
As if to further emphasize his slavish devotion to a corrupt racist, Gaetz said of the U.S. Congress: “This place sucks.”
Gaetz was elected by thousands of people in Florida’s 1st Congressional District to represent them in Congress, but instead he has spent the two years since he was sworn in as a human shield for Trump.
He recently got into hot water for making an over-the-top threat against Michael Cohen, Trump’s former personal lawyer and fixer, as Cohen testified before Congress.
“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,” he wrote.
Legal experts pointed out the tweet could be in violation of federal laws against witness tampering and the Florida Bar began to investigate. Speaker Nancy Pelosi condemned him too, and Gaetz apologized and eventually deleted the tweet.
His loyalty to Trump was placed above any sense of solidarity with law enforcement as he and other Republicans recently claimed that the still-unseen Mueller report proved that Russia didn’t meddle in the 2016 election.
“It was not ‘Russians’ who elected Donald Trump,” said Gaetz, minimizing the repeated conclusions of U.S. intelligence agencies, who determined Russia was working on Trump’s behalf.
Even fellow Republicans have been at the receiving end of a Gaetz tongue-lashing for insufficient loyalty to Trump.
When then-Speaker Paul Ryan dissented from the conspiracy theory that the FBI had planted a spy in Trump’s campaign office, Gaetz whined to Fox Business that there was “no defense today for Paul Ryan siding with the FBI and Department of Justice over against those of us in the Congress who are working for transparency and accountability.” Gaetz also claimed he knew of Republicans working to oust Ryan over this.
The feedback loop between Gaetz and his idol Trump is all-encompassing, and when Gaetz complained he didn’t have enough Twitter followers, Trump used his much-larger platform to accuse the social network of censoring Republicans.
Matt Gaetz has made it abundantly clear that he is in Congress for Trump, not Florida. In the process, he continues to embarrass himself and make a mockery of his Congressional seat.
But as long as Trump praises this Floridian lapdog, Gaetz remains content.
Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.
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