Tag: sex trafficking

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Crime Sex Scandals Social Media WTF?!

Twitter Erupts With Laughter And Disgust After Matt Gaetz Says Sexual Predators Must Be Punished

Like so many Republicans in the Age of Trump, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) has absolutely no shame, no remorse, and no discernable intellect.

If you doubt that, consider that Gaetz stood on the floor of the House of Representatives Monday and demanded that those who sexually harass others be held accountable for their actions.

HuffPost reports:

Gaetz’s comments were made on the floor of the House in support of a bill that would end mandatory arbitration for workplace sexual harassment claims.

Here’s what Gaetz had the gall to say despite the fact that he’s currently under federal investigation for allegedly engaging in the sexual trafficking of an underage girl:

“Here is the question presented: Should sexual harassers who work for big businesses get to pick their juries in advance? I believe that the populist, nationalist right approach is to believe that the Article 3 courts, that we have set up for any and all, function as the proper venue. But for tens of millions of American workers, that courthouse door is locked!”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMorCe6zJ7c&feature=emb_logo

Keep in mind this is the same Matt Gaetz who was the only member of Congress to vote against an anti-human trafficking bill in 2017, Politifact has confirmed:

Gaetz really was the only vote against an anti-human trafficking bill that Trump signed into law. The reason he offered at the time was not on the bill’s substance, but in favor of limiting government. 

The Combating Human Trafficking in Commercial Vehicles Act passed the Senate by unanimous consent in September 2017. When the House passed the bill in December 2017, Gaetz was the only no vote. President Donald Trump signed the bill into law in January 2018.

The Florida Republican was so pleased with his speech on Monday that he posted a video of it on his Twitter account:

That was all it took for social media to punch back at Gaetz.

https://twitter.com/sonnycharette/status/1490828715080646658?s=20&t=eeRXJNeeDuurPjMiWEEcSQ
 

Categories
Crime GOP Sex Scandals

Immunity Deal For Key Female Witness Means Matt Gaetz’s Goose Is Cooked: Report

The single most important witness in the case against Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) has reached an immunity deal with federal prosecutors and agreed to testify against him, according to a report from NBC News, and that’s the surest sign yet the Florida congressman is indeed going to be indicted on charges of sexually trafficking underage girls, a crime which could potentially send Gaetz to prison for the rest of his life.

Recently, Gaetz’s former girlfriend testified before a federal grand jury, a move that one former prosecutor called “diabolical but brilliant.”

NBC senior national reporter Marc Caputo says that the latest testimony and plea deal suggests that the chances of Gaetz being indicted are significantly greater than they were a week ago:

“When this broke, the ex-girlfriend was talking to another woman who was talking to prosecutors that felt the woman may have recorded the call and may have patched in Matt Gaetz at the time and prosecutors suspect he tried to elicit or entice or suborn obstruction of justice and his ex-girlfriend may have participated in that. That was the basis of her getting an immunity deal; ‘don’t charge me for this and I’ll tell you the things you want to know.'”

Caputo then added:

“Exactly what she told them is key but what’s important to note here is that she’s an important bridge that unlocks the case or unstalls it. It was stuck in neutral. Now the case is clearly going forward. I can’t promise he’s going to be indicted but the chances are higher.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uwTP7ohxQs&feature=emb_logo
 

The fact that the woman is Gaetz’s former paramour and not his wife is also significant, according to MSNBC legal analyst Danny Cevallos:

There are exactly zero “girlfriend” testimonial privileges. It doesn’t matter if the girlfriend has lived with the boyfriend for years. It doesn’t matter if they have kids together. A girlfriend is not a wife — but she is a potential gold mine for prosecutors. They have a witness who often knows the target as well as a spouse would, but who can be questioned, cajoled and subpoenaed without worrying about any of those pesky privilege barriers.

Gaetz was already in BIG trouble, but now he’s officially toast.

 

Categories
Crime Donald Trump Sex Scandals

Trump Starts Sweating As Ghislaine Maxwell Ends Legal Fight To Keep Names Of Her Other ‘Clients’ Sealed

If failed, one-term former President Donald Trump thought his legal problems couldn’t possibly get any worse, a report from Mediaite is certain to make him sweat as he contemplates his name being attached yet again to his former longtime friend, the late financier/convicted child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein and the woman who arranged for men to have sex with underage girls, Ghislaine Maxwell.

Maxwell was found guilty on five felony counts last December, but her attempts to keep the names of so-called “John Doe” clients hidden have now been withdrawn, which means Trump could soon find himself directly implicated in all sorts of serious federal and state crimes involving the abuse of minors:

At issue? Virginia Giuffre’s request to unseal documents that name names in her since-settled civil lawsuit against Ghislaine Maxwell, which led to a lengthy and ongoing open-records battle.

Giuffre, one of Epstein’s many alleged victims, filed a federal lawsuit in New York in August of last year accusing Britain’s Prince Andrew of sexually abusing her on multiple occasions when she was 17 years old. Her lawsuit against Alan Dershowitz—and his countersuit against her—are also playing out in the Southern District of New York.

In a legal brief filed on Wednesday, Giuffre requested that the judge unseal the names of the John Does currently kept out of the public eye, in part due to their complaints of how disruptive the media attention would be to their lives.

Attorneys for Maxwell now say they have no objections to those names being made public, and that suggests more charges could be in the offing against all sorts of celebrities and political figures:

Maxwell has previously fought the unsealing of the legal names of the John Does revealed in the still-sealed court documents, but a letter from her lawyer dated January 12th notes that Maxwell “does not wish to further address” detailed objections submitted by Non-Party Does 17, 53, 54, 55, 73, 93, and 151.

Trump is already under investigation in New York for financial crimes, in Georgia for attempting to overturn the will of voters in the Peach State, and is also being looked at closely by the House Select Committee on the January 6 Capitol insurrection.

Judge Loretta Preska will decide if the list of men should be made public, and it’ll be interesting to hear what Trump will have to say if he turns up on the John Doe list as one of the men Maxwell set up with underage girls for sex. He’ll probably claim it’s “fake news” and try to blame someone else.

 

Categories
Congress Crime GOP Sex Scandals

Maxine Waters Humiliates Matt Gaetz: He ‘Needs To Shut Up’ And Focus On His ‘Young Girls’ Problem

 

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) has had quite enough of Republicans in Congress whining about the investigation of the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection, and she absolutely obliterated one of them with comments she made during an appearance on MSNBC.

Speaking with host Jonathan Capehart, Waters was shown a clip of Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) holding forth a fact-free press conference recently.

Once the video had been shown, Waters remarked:

“Well, you know, the world watched what happened and for them to try and rewrite history and to tell people, ‘don’t believe your lying eyes.'”

And then the California Democrat brought up the fact that Gaetz is under investigation for allegedly paying underage girls to have sex with him:

“He had better be concerned about what’s happening to him, he had better be concerned about, you know, the fact that he’s been investigated and then concerns about him and young girls and on and on and on. But absolutely, to get in our faces and talk about they had no intent of hurting anybody when we’ve got five of our Capitol police who are dead, 150 of them who have been harmed? We absolutely are going to have to resist, we’re going to have to fight and we can’t let them get away with it.”

Waters was far from finished, however, and she issued one final jab at Republicans:

“I want my party to rise to this occasion and not try and think that somehow we are going to be able to work something out with them. They have defined themselves as liars, people with no integrity and they are intent on protecting [Donald] Trump and they’re all afraid of him. They are not representing even their constituents so Gaetz needs to shut up.”

Game, set, and match Maxine Waters.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6k3Wle2PJc
 

Categories
Crime Donald Trump Sex Scandals

Former Prosecutor: Ghislaine Maxwell Likely To Flip On Trump To Avoid Life In Prison

Now that she’s facing as much as 65 years in prison after being convicted for child sex trafficking, Ghislaine Maxwell may be ready to talk to and cooperate with federal prosecutors, which could be bad news for ex-President Donald Trump and other longtime friends of Maxwell and her late friend Jeffrey Epstein.

Elie Hoenig, who worked for years as a federal prosecutor, raised the possibility of Maxwell telling what she knows in exchange for a reduced sentence. Maxwell is 60 years old, so a 65-year stint in federal prison would result in her spending the rest of her life incarerated.

Trump, it should be noted, wished Maxwell the best while he was still in office, commenting in July of 2020:

“I’ve met her numerous times over the years, especially since I lived in Palm Beach, and I guess they lived in Palm Beach. But I wish her well, whatever it is.”

A month later, Trump reiterated those remarks, telling Jonathan Swan of Axios:

“Yeah, I wish her well. I’d wish you well. I’d wish a lot of people well. Good luck. Let them prove somebody was guilty.”

According to Hoenig, Maxwell could have lots of information that would interest prosecutors:

If indeed Maxwell does plan to tell what she knows, she might want to go ahead and make that clear as soon as possible. Otherwise, she might wind up like Epstein, who died of “suicide” while awaiting trial.