Category: Crime

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Congress Crime Sex Scandals

Florida Bar Suspends Matt Gaetz From Practicing Law

 

The bad news just keeps rolling in for embattled Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), who is reportedly under investigation for sexually trafficking underage girls.

The Daily Beast reports that the Florida Bar Association has suspended Gatez from practicing law in his home state:

As of Wednesday, Gaetz had not paid the fees he owes to The Florida Bar, which regulates lawyers there, prompting the organization to deem him “delinquent” and “not eligible to practice law in Florida.”

As you might expect, rather than be forthright about not paying the required money, Joel Valdez, a spokesperson for Gaetz tried to spin the latest humiliation for the congressman:

“Congressman Gaetz is no longer actively engaged in the practice of law. He is focused on representing his constituents in Congress, not the courtroom.”

However, attorneys who spoke to Daily Beast reporter Jose Pagliery said that sounds like a load of bull:

That explanation may sound reasonable enough. But four attorneys who spoke to The Daily Beast noted that it is extremely rare for lawyers to do this. Instead, attorneys taking a step back from their legal duties normally pay a smaller $175 fee to remain “inactive” but still a “member in good standing.

“He clearly doesn’t take his law license very seriously when he doesn’t take the time to pay the $265 dues,” said Daniel Uhlfelder, a Santa Rosa Beach attorney who lives in Gaetz’s district. “He’s not a serious lawyer. He’s not a serious congressman. He’s not a serious person. This is one small but symbolic example of that.”

The real reason Gaetz isn’t paying his dues to the Bar Association is probably so he can avoid having his law license revoked as more evidence continues to come to light regarding his alleged sexual misconduct with minors, according to Cris Dosev, a real estate developer who ran against Gaetz in the GOP primary last year:

“It might be a calculated move. I think he’s preemptively trying to remove a level of scrutiny from the Bar.”

This has been the proverbial “week from hell” for Gaetz, with his former “wingman,” Seminole County, Florida, tax collector Joel Greenberg receiving a four month delay in his sentencing as he continues to cooperate with federal prosecutors as they investigate whether or not the congressman sexually exploited underage girls.

If convicted of sexually trafficking minors across state lines, Gaetz could be sentenced to life in prison.

Categories
Congress Crime Donald Trump

House January 6 Committee Believes There’s Video Evidence Proving Trump’s Guilt

The House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol has reason to believe there’s video evidence which would prove that former President Donald Trump didn’t want his supporters to vacate the premises and instead expected them to remain until he had been declared the winner of the 2020 election.

The committee has requested from the National Archives all of the video recordings Trump made as the rioting grew more intense, because in some of them Trump didn’t tell the rioters to disperse, but only expressed his love and support for them.

Based on reporting in a new book from ABC News White House correspondent Jon Karl, we know that several versions of Trump’s video message were recorded.

In the book, Betrayal: The Final Act of the Trump Show, Karl writes, according to ABC News:

The former president liked what he saw, boasted about the size of the crowd and argued with aides who wanted him to tell his supporters to stop rioting, according to Karl’s sources.

Two hours after the riot started, Trump finally acquiesced to recording a video statement. In the message posted to Twitter, he asked his supporters to go home but also praised them. “We love you. You are special,” Trump said in the video.

An aide present for the recording said, “Trump had to tape the message several times before they thought he got it right.”

In earlier versions he neglected to tell his supporters to leave the Capitol, according to Karl.

And that, Ryan Goodman of Just Security notes, is why the Select Committee wants to see every version of the video Trump recorded:

That would indeed be evidence of Trump’s guilt. It would prove his intent and that he didn’t want the violence to stop until he got what he wanted; until he could remain as head of state.

Trump filed suit to block the committee from getting any videos. Why would he want to keep that information hidden if he didn’t do anything wrong, as he repeatedly suggests? Because he knows it will prove his culpability and likely send him to prison for decades.

 

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Crime Donald Trump

Senator Hints At First Charges Against Trump: Georgia Is A ‘Ripe Area’

Thanks to an interim report from the Senate Judiciary Committee that was released this week, we now have a better idea exactly how former President Donald Trump and other members of his administration attempted to overturn the results of the 2020 election and keep Trump in office against the will of the American voters.

Specifically, the Washington Post notes, Trump did everything he could to remain in office:

The interim report by the Senate Judiciary Committee was issued Thursday. While Republicans on the panel offered their counter-findings, arguing that Trump did not subvert the justice system to remain in power, the majority report by the Democrats offers the most detailed account to date of the struggle inside the administration’s final, desperate days.

The report underscores the gaping political divide that has emerged in this country over one of the most basic functions of government — conducting free and fair elections. Democrats charge Trump nearly provoked a constitutional crisis, but for the steady hands of senior Justice Department officials; Republicans say Trump was “faithful” to his sworn duty as president in seeking assurances about voter integrity.

But according to Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), a member of the Judiciary Committee, the focus is now on Georgia, where Trump desperately tried to have state officials overturn the results and name him the victor.

Whitehouse was a guest on “Meet the Press,” and was asked by host Chuck Todd:

“At the end of the report, there is some talk about criminal referrals. What would be criminal in this case?”

Though he wouldn’t get into specifics, Sen. Whitehouse made it clear that the Justice Department will be particularly interested in Georgia:

“I don’t want to get into criminal referrals, we’re still in the interim level. But I would point to just the geographic fact that much of what took place at the Department of Justice being focused on Georgia. Being focused on sending letters to the Georgia legislature saying that they could open up in special session and redo the election with a separate slate, and the extent to which that interconnects with the DA’s investigation into Trump’s personal efforts to threaten officials in Georgia on the same question is, I think, a very ripe area for at least Georgia’s investigation and we’ll see what the Department of Justice wants to do with it.”

 

Of course, there’s no way of knowing if the DOJ will file criminal charges in the matter of Trump’s attempts to rig the election in his favor after the votes had been counted. But the interim report from the Judiciary Committee certainly suggests there’s plenty of evidence to support a full investigation and criminal charges if a case can be made.

While it’s long been assumed Trump is under the greatest legal jeopardy in New York, it could be Georgia that has the best proof of his most recent crimes and the danger they posed to our democratic process.

 

 

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Congress Crime Domestic Terrorism U.S. Senate WTF?!

Ted Cruz Claims The Biden Administration Is ‘Persecuting’ The Capitol Insurrectionists

Texas GOP Sen. Ted Cruz (R) doesn’t believe that everyone who stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6 deserves to be punished or charged with a crime because many of them are clearly being “persecuted” and the Biden administration is “targeting” them.

In an interview with HuffPost, Cruz had this to say about the fact that hundreds of Capitol insurrectionists are now facing serious legal jeopardy for their illegal actions:

“If an individual assaulted a police officer, they should spend a long, long time in jail.

If, on the other hand, the Biden administration is targeting and persecuting people for exercising political speech that is nonviolent and simply expressing their peaceful support for a political party different from that in power, that is not the purpose of our criminal justice system.”

And if a frog had wings, it wouldn’t bump it’s ass every time it jumped, Ted.

“As it turns out, Cruz’s sentiments are now increasingly common among those who remain loyal to failed, one-term former President Donald Trump:

“Some allies of former President Donald Trump are upset that protesters who didn’t assault police officers are being charged with misdemeanor offenses, the same type of charges they’d face had they been arrested at any protest inside the Capitol. Demonstrations are banned within the Capitol complex, and even an errant laugh during a congressional hearing can get you led out of the room in flex cuffs.”

So if you stand up during a congressional hearing and speak out of turn, you can be carted off and charged, but if you riot and enter the Capitol, take a shit in the hallways, and rub your feces on the walls, that’s no biggie, according to Cruz and other Trump faithful who seem to think the rules apply to everyone but them.

What happened on Jan. 6 was a crime. Plain and simple. And it has to be treated as such. If it isn’t, we’re inviting it to happen again and be even rose the next time.

 

Categories
Congress Crime GOP Sex Scandals

Gaetz Abruptly Ends Press Conference As Reporter Asks Him: ‘Are You A Pedophile?’

On Tuesday, as the first day of hearings began for the House Select Committee on January 6, a group of four Republican lawmakers decided they’d go to the Department of Justice building and protest the treatment of people arrested following the Capitol insurrection, whom they claim are “political prisoners.”

In attendance were Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (GA), Matt Gaetz (FL), Louie Gohmert (Texas), and Paul Gosar (AZ), The Hill reports:

“(Greene, Gaetz, Gohmert, and Gosar) were holding a news conference outside the DOJ to protest the treatment of individuals arrested in connection to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, when counterprotesters arrived on the scene.

“One protester repeatedly blew a whistle during the event, and other demonstrators were holding signs that read ‘Jan 6th was an inside job, vets for democrats’ and ‘Traitors + Rapists: Sit Down,’ the latter likely referring to Gaetz, who is under investigation for an alleged sexual relationship with a 17-year-old girl.”

The counterprotests were so loud and raucous that at one point a man announced:

“The left is interrupting the press conference, we need to end it.”

As the crowd was dispersing, a reporter repeatedly asked Gaetz:

“Are you a pedophile?”

https://twitter.com/ZTPetrizzo/status/1420069248781668364?s=20

Gaetz couldn’t walk fast enough to get away from the scene, and the question he was being asked came just hours after his future sister-in-law, Roxanne Luckey, posted a series of videos on TikTok in which she lambasted the Florida congressman, calling him “a literal pedophile.”

Gaetz is currently under federal investigation for allegedly being sexually active with an underage girl he trafficked across state lines, a crime which can carry a penalty of life in prison.

Gaetz, Greene, Gohmert, and Gosar are all trying their best to deflect attention from the fact that many in their party supported and continue to support the domestic terrorists who stormed the Capitol earlier this year. But all the distractions in the world won’t be able to paper over the fact that the current GOP is under the thrall of a monster named Trump and believes violence is more valuable than democracy.