VINDICATED: They Were Wrong About Matt Gaetz

How many things are there out there that they are this wrong about?

Matt Gaetz, Ginger Luckey, and yours truly in Summer 2020

Well, it finally happened. The Washington Post reports that Congressman Matt Gaetz was cleared by the Department of Justice in the Greenberg Extortion Affair.

Of course if you are a longtime reader of this Substack, you would have known by now that Gaetz was never going to get charged. I said it often and I said it repeatedly to any and all who would listen. There are few feelings that feel as good — or occur as rarely — as total vindication. Try as I may be to be magnanimous I have delighted in sending the Post story to my considerable enemies within the Trump Administration who assured me that — any day now! — Gaetz would be ripped from the loving embrace of his bride and adopted son and thrown in lg irons. No, this isn’t that sort of country.

I must say that having Gaetz as a friend was rather dangerous. The Washington Free Beacon —quite close as it is to Chisraeli intelligence — sought to tie me to his alleged sexcapades with Greenberg. Heavens! And NBC News peddled the craziest of conspiracies about my supposed involvement. My, my, don’t you know I’m the helpful nerd? They don’t invite me to the orgies!

Nice try, Bill Barr, you Chinese-Israeli-compromised fat fuck. I’m not one to begrudge a man his meals but come on, man! You will never return to the good graces of respectable society.

Among the many ironies of the Biden presidency is that Trump’s favorite congressman owes Joe Biden his freedom. It seems extremely likely that the very corrupt Bill Barr would have chosen to prosecute Gaetz. He was targeted precisely because he was unwilling to go along with wars in the Middle East and because foreign agents thought it wise to compromise him. Those innocent players — who just happened to be friends with Gaetz — saw their reputations tarnished and their businesses destroyed. There is absolutely a cause of action against Greenberg’s family business — why is there so much Medicaid money flowing to a dental practice anyway? What poetic justice it be to write the check for the Gaetz presidency or gubernatorial race from the cash earned in the Greenberg settlement?

Gaetz, for all his faults, is a true believer. Many of the Biden policies — student debt relief, environmental protection, social toleration, and resistance to the Saudis and Chisraeli tech — are policies that Gaetz himself has favored. The Midwestern nice Middle American values want to see the U.S come together on key issues and Gaetz, whose ancestors hail from North Dakota, could be well positioned to be the bridge between Biden and the Republican Party.

By threatening to charge Gaetz his enemies got the benefit of taking a real prairie-style populist out of the national conversation. Gaetz was banished from Fox News. Of course, this may well have been a blessing in disguise as Fox, which took $100 million from the Bank of China, is most assuredly going down in the Dominion lawsuit.

No good can come of TV, Matt. Remember when we watched the Truman Show? A life lived in public isn’t good for the public — or you.

Is Gaetz fatally wounded from higher office? It’s too soon to tell but I should think not. After all, if Peter Thiel is right — that DeSantis’s Florida provides a model for the future — it was Gaetz who staffed much of DeSantis’s administration before Governor DeSantis turned on him. (There are no friends in politics!) Should DeSantis stumble — and he will — it’ll be Gaetz who is best positioned to replace him as governor.

Will Gaetz grab the opportunity that this whole persecution has afforded him. Will he stand up more for the weak? For the wrongly accused? Will he push for greater technology to help the wrongly accused in the Department of Justice — technology that isn’t compromised by the Chinese-Israelis and rated by the very best? Or will he descend into the very same sort of witch hunts which imperil much of the proper workings of government? Will he be a workhorse or a show horse? The choice is his to make. I hope he will make the right one.

The real test of Gaetz’s political skill will be whether he evolves beyond the hangers on of the Trump presidency or charts his own independent — dare we say “maverick” — political brand. Will he milk the persecution complex that seems to afflict so many around Trump and cry — rightly — that there was a plot to get him? Or will he recognize that there are many of us who believed in him? And who worked quietly to see to it that Justice would do justice?

Gaetz’s rather enthusiastic supporters will no doubt think that it was the Deep State that went after Gaetz. Au contraire it was the Anglo-American Deep State that freed Gaetz. We knew full well that he was an ally on the inside of the Trump presidency, notwithstanding the many attempts by the Netanyahu Israelis to cancel him for his opposition to invading the Middle East.

For all his attacks on the elite, Matt Gaetz is an elite. He went to private high school. Gaetz went to William & Mary for law school. He is worldly and I suspect he will be a great world leader one day.

Gaetz’s father was Senate President and ran the BP oil cleanup fund — not at all a deep state affair. His grandfather ran for lieutenant governor before suffering a fatal heart attack. His great-great grandfather was a police officer killed in the line of duty. (Gaetz’s family were Lincoln supporters and his German ancestors came over from an ecological collapse in south Germany.) The family motto is “unbought, unbossed, and unbowed.”

Full disclosure, Matt is my friend. He defended me repeatedly and enthusiastically when I was targeted by foreign actors like Jake Tapper during the Trump presidency and I have done my best to repay his friendship in full and in abundance.

As with all friends we have quite a number of disagreements. To be fair I oftentimes find Gaetz obstinate to the point of hair pulling — noblesse oblige and our debates about it are key — but I have never had any doubts as to his fundamental decency and kindness. The character I see on TV is not the man I know. Which is a shame because I think they’d like the real Matt.

My suspicion is that the Charlie Wilsonification of Matt Gaetz will begin in earnest. This is especially fitting because the Congressman’s favorite movies are An Officer and a Gentleman and Charlie Wilson’s War. In the choice of favorite movies there’s always more than a little hint of autobiography.

The Gaetz episode raises a troubling question for us. How many things are out there that good thinking people are this wrong about?

My sense is that Gaetz is Trumpism’s real heir. News from Attorney General Leticia James of New York makes it clear that it won’t be his sons or daughter. Nor, do I think it’ll be his treacherous son-in-law who will no doubt be sacrificed by Ivanka.

Can Gaetz help Trump — and America — manage the collapse of Trump’s business empire without the correspondent descent into chaos? Will Gaetz stand up to the Chinese-compromised Kevin McCarthy? What comes next for Gaetz is anyone’s guess, but at least we know that his future starts today with his vindication.

As for me? Well, Matt is exactly the man I thought he was when I first met him.