The Daily Beast
The Strange Friendship That Matt Gaetz Can Drop
Alex Wong / GettyRep. Matt Gaetz is in the midst of one of the ugliest falls of political grace in decades. But on a smaller and less public scale, Gaetz’s decline largely reflects one of his closest allies – the man who may have begun his downfall: Joel Greenberg. Gaetz, the Republican of Florida and Greenberg are friends. Until recently, both were wealthy players in the new Trumpist wave that swept across the Florida GOP. Both were sons of successful fathers who made their names known across the state. Both hung out in the same circles, advocating the same libertarian causes and clinging to the same Florida GOP icons, like Governor Ron DeSantis and the political operational Roger Stone. And now both are trapped in a federal investigation investigating the allegations according to The New York Times they recruited young women and paid for sex. These text messages showed the facts to Matt Gaetz As The Daily Beast reported Friday, it was text messages about Gaetz and Greenberg’s outbound trips to a government office investigating officers warned about congressional involvement in alleged crimes – and they eventually led to what they considered a criminal sex ring, but before Joel Greenberg was charged with sex trafficking and drawing attention to Gaetz, Greenberg was an eccentric tax collector with a political future. Like Gaetz, Greenberg is the son of a wealthy local businessman. Dr. Andrew Greenberg is co-founder of a dental firm with 92 offices across the state. Joel, who has an interest in the company, has set up his own advertising agency, DG3. For a time, he also hosted ‘The Joel Greenberg Show’, a sports-themed radio program on WRSO 810 AM. He sold the advertising business in 2015 and competed for the Seminole County tax collector the following year, defeating the 78-year-old man who has held the office since 1988. Greenberg immediately took foreign steps for a low profile and boring job. He moved the agency out of its rent-free government offices. He appointed his friends. He handed out dubious contracts to longtime collaborators. He used his tax collector ‘badge’ to present himself as law enforcement and pull a speed. He even tried to get taxpayers to carry guns, but that was another kind of alleged abuse of power that his friend Matt Gaetz would eventually stifle. Greenberg, whose government agency was tasked with shredding expired driver’s licenses, was illegally creating false ones. IDs, according to investigators. And Gaetz was with him when the couple was caught on a weekend in April 2018 on a weekend in the Lake Mary branch of the tax collector’s office, according to several people who are aware of the incident. Asked by an employee whether he visited the office over the weekend, Greenberg replied by text: ‘Yes, I showed Congressman Gaetz what our operation looks like there. Did I leave something behind? “Images of text messages received by The Daily Beast show that Greenberg involved the member of Congress even further with a personal favor in September that year. It was then that he went beyond the official protocol and instructed an employee on a Sunday afternoon to quickly provide a duplicate ID to Gaetz. ‘Amy- is there any way to help one of our members of Congress get an emergency replacement ID or DL by Tuesday 2pm? His was lost yesterday and he had a flight on Tuesday. There is currently no other form of ID. It’s a shame I’m bothering you Sunday, “Greenberg wrote. The favor was for his friend,” Matthew Louis Gaetz II, “born May 7, 1982. The text messages made their way to the U.S. Secret Service in early 2020. According to a source familiar with the requests from agents, Florida law enforcement and recently another federal agency, in the years before these incidents, Gaetz and Greenberg publicly showed a tape referring to their similar thinking, interests, and friendships.Gaetz, the son of a former Florida Senate president, climbed to the top level of Florida state politics at a young age, but he gained an unpleasant reputation, even among fellow Republicans, because he allegedly called the one lawmaker a sex contest where ‘members of the FL House’ got ‘points’ because they slept with their assistants, interns, lobbyists and married lawmakers.’ Sources in Tallahassee told reporters that Gaetz regularly visited a restaurant popular with local college kids, which was part of his efforts to pick up subterfugees, Republicans have long been waiting for a Matt Gaetz scandal for the personal history of BreakGreenberg.It’s unclear when his friendship with Gaetz began, but by July 8, 2017, the two each shared a photo of their dinner with Roger Stone.Gaetz repeatedly called Greenberg his friend, or is it the idea of the tax collector was accepting bitcoin, sharing his opinions, or joking about their mutual lobbyist friend, Chris Dorworth.By 2018, Greenberg told BuzzFeed News that Gaetz was his political mentor, an article that Gaetz posted in full on his official congressional website Both visited the Israeli-Israeli Public Affairs Committee that year, where they took a selfie with a 21-year-old woman who had been to Ron DeSantis’ v. campaign for governor in Florida. In 2019, they shared photos of themselves in the White House with Dorworth. , who regards Gaetz as his own ‘legislative mentor’. Big catch up with @mattgaetz and @karis_lockhart during # AIPAC2018. pic.twitter.com/TNdMpDu3Ln— Joel Greenberg (@JoelGreenbergTC) March 7, 2018 They both also insisted on the legalization of marijuana. In January 2019, Gaetz shared a video on Twitter with Greenberg and John Morgan, a lawyer in Orlando who referred to himself as ‘Pot Daddy’. Greenberg was an avid cannabis user who regularly spun a marijuana vape pen, said three people who saw him use it in the tax office, at work parties or with friends. According to one source, he became Gaetz’s person for cannabis vape, and they were close enough to mix with family. In a video posted on YouTube, a photo of Gaetz rocking Greenberg’s newborn daughter appears. Greenberg’s wife, Abby, shared a Facebook photo of another case in which Gaetz detained her child in front of the White House, flanked by a smiling President Donald Trump. This week, a Florida lawmaker, Representative Anna V. Eskamani, a Democrat, told The Daily Beast about her own strange interaction with Greenberg and Gaetz, which would approach her personally – sometimes together. “There was all this weird involvement and kindness with me,” she said. ‘Matt Gaetz too. I do not have his number. I have no involvement with him. He tried to connect with me on Twitter. I am very careful about any reaction to him. “She said Greenberg would regularly send her photos to remind him of his party past, and that he and Gaetz teamed up in 2019 on what she called a ‘strange’ voicemail, which was published by The Daily Beast on Friday. The Creepy, Disturinging Case That annnar Matt Gaetz “We just talked about you and your beautiful qualities,” Greenberg said in the message, followed by Gaetz’s remark: “We think you are the future of the Democratic Party in Florida “On May 4, 2018, Gaetz took to Twitter to complement a new Greenberg policy innovation.” Do you pay taxes in cryptocurrency? @MrJoelGreenberg says yes, “wrote Gaetz, now a member of the House Blockchain Caucus. He tweeted a Greenberg parody account, possibly by accident, and a Seminole County audit last year showed that Greenberg led about $ 66,000 in taxpayer funds to his own company, Government Blockchain Systems LLC. When asked by auditors about the company, Greenberg told them he had developed a new way of accepting ‘cryptocurrency as payments’ for tax, prosecutors claim Greenberg taxed hundreds of thousands of Seminole County dollars ting payers stole and sank in cryptocurrency. Greenberg, a millionaire, also used about $ 240,000 in bitcoin to launch his doomed re-election offer in 2020. Although Greenberg has never financially supported Gaetz’s federal campaign efforts, Greenberg’s parents supported Gaetz, who made the most of the 2018 GOP by – elections. A year later, on June 9, 2020, Gaetz returned the favor, but the re-election of Greenberg was two weeks later. Greenberg was charged with his first indictment on charges of pursuing his Republican political opponent. Prosecutors have expanded the charges significantly. to a diverse list of crimes, ranging from wire fraud to sex trafficking, alleging that Greenberg recruited at least one teenager between the ages of 14 and 17 to engage in a “commercial sex act” in Central Florida and elsewhere in 2017. Gaetz comes in again. The New York Times revealed on Tuesday that federal investigators are also investigating whether Gaetz violated sex trafficking laws in his relationship with an unnamed 17-year-old girl. The teenager is allegedly the same victim in the middle of the charges against Greenberg. Follow-up reports from various stores allege that Gaetz shared nude photos of his sex partners on the floor of the house, encouraged underage women to have sex with his friends, and typed. ATMs, Apple Pay and Cash App to pay for sex leave a trail of receipts. Some of those involved and men apparently took ecstasy for the encounters. Gaetz’s reputation in Congress did not help him refute these allegations. It is known that Gaetz tended to date younger women, often in their early twenties, and had a long relationship with a congressional intern just over the age of 21. CNN reported on Thursday that he was famous that he shares nude photos of his sex partners with other lawmakers on the House floor, and talks about sex with them. Trump does not come to Matt Gaetz’s rescue – because now lawmakers have been talking about his alcohol and drug use for years, complaining that his office often smells like weeds and speculating that he lost weight while in Congress due to cocaine. And his conflicting relationship with his colleagues – especially fellow Republicans who supported Trump as inadequate – has cost him in his search for allies willing to stand up for him and refute a constant stream of negative stories, even if Gaetz claims about an extortion plot. Gaetz’s first reaction – that he was the victim of an ‘organized, criminal extortion’ with geopolitical implications, added a bizarre new dimension to the whole story. The wounded production wore a former prosecutor of the DOJ, a serial fraudster, and his own father, who, according to Gaetz, were said to be carrying a wire led by the FBI to defeat the crime. Gaetz has submitted a document from his alleged extortionists containing the absurd investigation the DOJ would abandon its investigation into sex crimes if Gaetz borrowed $ 25 million to hold a Jewish-American hostage in Iran. The hostage, Bob Levinson, was pronounced dead by the US government last year. did little to convince Republicans in Washington to pull Gaetz’s defense together. His spokesman stopped Friday. His political idol, Trump, remained mom, just like the vast majority of his fellow Republican congressmen. “The last time I had a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old, I was 17,” Gaetz told The Daily Beast earlier. the week one of his strangely-specific denials of the charges against him. As for the Hill, I know I have many enemies and few friends. My support usually lies outside of Washington, DC, and I would not want it any other way. Read more at The Daily Beast. Do you have a tip? Send it here to The Daily Beast Get our top stories in your inbox every day. 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