Report: Matt Gaetz Is Screwed Six Ways From Sunday - Vanity Fair

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Two top prosecutors have been added to the DOJ’s investigation, and the sentencing of the congressman’s former wingman has been delayed because of the volume of dirt the guy has shared with the Feds.

By Bess Levin

October 22, 2021

If you’ve been keeping tabs on the legal drama surrounding Matt Gaetz, you probably noticed that the last month seemingly brought a lull in headlines concerning the Justice Department investigation into whether he paid women for sex and, separately, slept with a minor and transported her across state lines. Some might have taken that pause to mean the Republican congressman was in the clear, and that the only thing he had to worry about was how deeply awkward Thanksgiving with the in-laws would be this year. But unfortunately for the Florida representative, that does not appear to be the case. In fact, multiple developments in the scandal that he has asked us to refer to as “Gaetzgate” suggest the guy should be extremely worried about his future as a free man.

The most worrisome, if one is worried about Gaetz potentially doing a decade in prison, is a report from The New York Times that the Department of Justice has added a pair of top prosecutors to its investigation, “a sign of the complex and high-stakes nature of the inquiry.” According to Pulitzer Prize–winning reporters Katie Benner and Michael Schmidt, one of the prosecutors is a public corruption investigator who specializes in child exploitation crimes. The other, Todd Gee, is a deputy chief of the Public Integrity Section, which is part of the DOJ’s Criminal Division, a department that is “involved in nearly all major criminal investigations into alleged misconduct by federal, state, and local officials.” Among other cases, Gee served as a lead prosecutor on the 2020 conviction of an ex-Navy commander at Guantánamo Bay, who was found guilty of covering up a fight with a commissary worker who was subsequently found dead.

How bad is this news for Gaetz, who has denied any and all allegations against him? As Elie Mystal, attorney and justice correspondent for The Nation, put it on Thursday:

Another person who seems to know how concerning this development is? Matt Gaetz, hence his decision to use a congressional hearing with Attorney General Merrick Garland to smear DOJ prosecutors. Per the Times:

During a congressional hearing on Thursday, Mr. Gaetz asked Attorney General Merrick B. Garland whether the department imposed any special vetting processes before it hired former lobbyists or former congressional staffers to work as federal prosecutors, specifically in the Public Integrity Section. “Is there any prohibition against people who’ve been lobbyists, partisan committee staff, or political consultants actually going in and serving in the Public Integrity Section, or is that allowed?” Mr. Gaetz asked. He later added, “If someone has been a political operative, to then put them in charge of election crimes, it’s kind of like having the fox guard the henhouse.”

Mr. Garland noted that it was against Justice Department policy to consider a person’s political affiliations or views during the hiring process for career civil servants. “There is a requirement that, once somebody becomes a prosecutor, just like when somebody becomes a judge, that they get rid of whatever preconceptions they had before,” Mr. Garland said. Mr. Gaetz asked Mr. Garland for a list of former lobbyists, former political consultants, and former congressional staffers who now worked in the Public Integrity Section. Mr. Garland said that he did not intend to create a list of career officials and their previous jobs.

Meanwhile, the addition of the two prosecutors is far from the only thing Gaetz should be soiling himself over at the moment. During a hearing in Orlando federal court on Monday, a judge granted a request for a delay in the sentencing of Gaetz’s former wingman, Joel Greenberg, who has apparently been providing the department with so much dirt that it could use extra time to go through it all. In a hint of just how uniquely horrifying said dirt may be, Roger Handberg, an assistant U.S. attorney, told the judge that Greenberg has made allegations to investigators that “take us to some places we did not anticipate.” Greenberg himself had originally been hit with a whopping 33 charges, but ended up pleading guilty to just six, including sex trafficking of a child, which seemingly suggests prosecutors believe he will be able to prove uniquely helpful to them. Per CNN:

As part of his plea agreement, [Greenberg] was required to give “substantial assistance” to investigators as they build out related cases. His lawyer has said that Greenberg has held a series of proffers, or meetings, with the Justice Department. Handberg did not say what investigations Greenberg was providing new information to authorities about, although CNN has reported that Greenberg has told the Justice Department about encounters he and Gaetz had with women who were given cash or gifts in exchange for sex.

According to the Times, Greenberg has told investigators that he saw Gaetz and others have sex with the same 17-year-old he pleaded guilty to sex trafficking. In court on Monday, Handberg called Greenberg a “prolific criminal,” ominously adding, “Mr. Greenberg was not alone.”

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