House Republicans Are Zeroing In On Trafficking Allegations Against Matt Gaetz

Trouble is brewing for Matt Gaetz as the House Ethics Committee ramps up their investigation into the alleged trafficking allegations against him (that the DOJ refused to prosecute him for.) The Committee is calling new witnesses who had previously testified to the DOJ, a clear sign that they are hyper-focused on the trafficking portion at the moment. This could have a major impact on Gaetz's political future, as Ring of Fire's Farron Cousins explains.

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*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

More information has come out this week about the House Ethics Committee's investigation into Matt Gaetz. And it has now been confirmed that one of the additional witnesses that the, uh, staffers on the committee reached out to, I guess in the last week or so, was in fact the woman that Gates allegedly had sex with while she was a minor. And of course he was not prior to that, which CNN broke that news uh uh, late Wednesday evening. Prior to that, we didn't know who these extra people were that had been called as witnesses before the House Committee. We do know that this was the second time in just as many months that the committee has announced a new slate of witnesses that they were calling and they do expect in the coming weeks for those witnesses to return the request and then we'll get the ball rolling from there for these people to start coming in.

But this is the first time thanks to that CNN report, which was then corroborated and followed up with by the Daily Beast on Thursday. We do know and staffers from the committee did confirm to the Daily Beast. They're now zeroing in on the trafficking allegations against Matt Gaetz. The staffers were also quick to point out that initially they didn't wanna go there, they didn't wanna touch this stuff that the DOJ had been investigating. They were mostly looking at financial disclosures, you know, possibly misuse of campaign funds for Matt Gaetz a little bit on the sex stuff, a lot on the drugs, allegedly alleged drugs. Gotta gotta say they gotta keep our hands clean here, but now they've confirmed that yeah, we're looking at the trafficking and uh, we're gonna call some witnesses that he allegedly did things with, perhaps having sex with them, perhaps giving them free drugs and of course sending them money, which we know the money being sent is a thing.

Gates himself admitted. Yeah, I sent women money 'cause I was helping him out, but things are getting bad, things are getting real bad for Matt Gates with this investigation and to be honest, it couldn't come as a worse time for him. 'cause let me give you a little bit of anecdotal information here. And I know this 'cause I'm in his district every two years when we have these, uh, primaries here in Florida, Matt Gaetz always has a lot of Republican challengers. Usually only one or two that are fairly serious. But there will be a lot of people on that Florida primary ballot to challenge Matt Gaetz to then run for the seat and the general, if this committee is able to conclude their investigation and release their findings before that Florida primary, that would benefit the Republican party. So the clock is ticking because that would give Republicans down here enough time

To use whatever the committee's final report's going to say against Matt Gaetz in the primary. But right now the investigation hasn't even gone to the full committee yet. It's just sitting there with the staffers and the investigate and the investigatory part. It hasn't gone to the full committee. So the likelihood of us getting a final report before the Florida primary is slim to none at this point. And then that's gonna come back to hurt Republicans 'cause they will eventually have to release that final report and it's going to end up being during the general election. So, yeah, you guys, uh, may wanna speed things up if you want a chance at saving this seat.