Florida Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz, embroiled in an alleged sex trafficking scandal, is facing calls to resign from a member of his own party.
Adam Kinzinger, a Republican from Illinois, wrote: “Matt Gaetz must resign” in a tweet Posted Thursday, with a link to a Daily Beast article claiming Gaetz paid $ 900 to an accused sex trader.
Gaetz, 38, has been under pressure since the end of March, when the New York Times reported that he was being investigated for an alleged sexual relationship with a minor teenage girl.
The congressman, one of Donald Trump’s closest allies, has refused to step down despite calls from a number of Democrats, but will have to be re-examined after Kinzinger became the first prominent Republican member to also demand that Thank you Gaetz.
The Daily Beast reported that Gaetz sent Joel Greenberg, a friend accused of crimes, including sex trafficking to a 17-year-old girl, and allegedly negotiating a plea deal with prosecutors, a $ 900 payment over Venmo in May 2018.
According to the Daily Beast, Greenberg used the same app the next day to send payments totaling $ 900 to three young women. Greenberg described the payments to the women as: “Teaching”, “School” and “School”.
After approaching Daily Beast Gaetz for comment, he replied through a PR firm: “The rumors, gossip and self-righteous mistakes of others will eventually be addressed by my legal team.”
Lawyers said Thursday Greenberg plans to enter into a plea deal with prosecutors. Greenberg is facing charges, including one charge of sex trafficking with a 17-year-old girl, stalking and wire fraud.
NBC News reported that prosecutors were investigating the relationship between Gaetz and Greenberg and whether they were “searching the internet for women who could pay them for sex”. According to NBC News, it is also being investigated whether Gaetz paid women to travel to the Bahamas for sex.
Over the past two weeks, numerous reports of Gaetz’s questionable behavior have emerged.
CNN reported that Gaetz, sometimes on the floor of the house, showed other lawmakers nude photos of women with whom he claimed to have slept, while allegations surfaced that Gaetz created a game with a points system to sleep with staff members. of co-politicians.
Gaetz was elected to the House in 2016, the same year Trump was elected president, and quickly linked his fortune to Trump.
He became one of Trump’s strongest defenders and appeared regularly in Fox News, and in 2018, Gaetz was one of the 18 Republicans of the House who nominated Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize.
In January, Gaetz traveled to Wyoming to hold a rally against Liz Cheney, one of the state’s U.S. senators, because of her dissatisfaction with Trump.
Gaetz might have wanted something from Trump in return. This week, the New York Times reported that in the last days of Trump’s presidency, Gaetz asked the White House to “pretend to forgive himself and unidentified allies for their crimes.”