The Daily Beast
Matt Gaetz said his ‘travel records’ would acquit him. Not so fast.
Caroline Brehman When it first came to light last week that Rep. Matt Gaetz is being investigated for his sexual involvement with a 17-year-old, the Florida Republican said his travel records would acquit him. “It’s a horrible allegation and it’s a lie,” Gaetz told Tucker Carlson on Fox News a week ago. ‘The New York Times tells a story I traveled with a 17-year-old woman, and it’s really false. People can look at my travel records and see that this is not the case. ‘What Gaetz knew – or should have known – is that there are no such public records, at least not as far as his private life is concerned. , campaign files. Among all the revelations from Matt Gaetz last week was the news that the Department of Justice is investigating the Florida Republican’s potential use of campaign funds for personal expenses. And the reality of the campaign funding reports is that they raise more questions than they answer about these alleged scandals. “The expenses surrounding the Gaetz campaign simply do not say what he wants it to say,” Jordan Libowitz, communications director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a watchdog for campaign funding, told The Daily Beast. “One, the reports do not provide specific information; and two, it is not clear whether he even says that his campaign series will acquit him. If he pays out of pocket, we will not know the answers without a subpoena. ‘As Gaetz knows, his campaign does not contain any information that would prove that he never participated in a sex ring or for the travel of a minor minor. What his documentation does show is that Gaetz had a close relationship with Joel Greenberg – the tax collector charged in Seminole County on charges of sex trafficking. The Daily Beast reported last week that Greenberg requested one on Sunday, September 2, 2018. of his tax office employees to draw up an emergency replacement driving license for Gaetz, which Greenberg said lost his ID the night before. ‘Amy- is there any way to help one of our members of Congress get an emergency replacement ID or DL by Tuesday 2pm? Greenberg wrote in the text, but Gaetz is not a resident of Seminole County. The first information on the county’s driver’s license website states that the office will process’ only ‘Seminole County residents’ for ALL driver’s license or ID card services. No exceptions will be made. Applicants are told on the website that if they are unable to provide proof of residence, a ticket for driving license or ID card services will NOT be served. ‘The website also makes clear that the province’ is NOT directly affiliated with the local state of Florida. Driving License Office ”and only serves to perform very limited licenses for issuing licenses. Seminole County is centrally located on the outskirts of Orlando, hours from Gaetz’s Panhandle district. Monday was Labor Day, and the congressman made the Tuesday flight to return to DC after fighting for re-election in his home district in November. : an amount of $ 439.91 for the luxury Rosen Center Hotel, paid September 28 as part of the campaign’s monthly credit card bill. The exact date of the stay cannot be known without Gaetz producing receipts – or without the DOJ submitting a summons. Libowitz said the hotel costs were “difficult to recover” under the campaign funding laws that prohibit the conversion of funds to personal use. “It makes sense if he has to get the ID,” Libowitz said. “But I do not know why a sitting Congressman can not do it alone, in his own country, and why he should get a friend to do it for him.” As Libowitz noted to The Daily Beast, the documents do not tell the full story. ‘You can only use campaign funds for eligible campaigns. So, under the theory that he went to Orlando to get a license illegally, he would have to state a difficult case – that it is appropriate to use your campaign to circumvent legal legislation, ‘he said. “And it will be a piece.” According to The Daily Beast’s review, the Gaetz campaign committee – Friends of Matt Gaetz – has spent about $ 57,000 on airfare over the past four years, $ 57,000 on accommodation, $ 9,000 on miscellaneous travel, $ 40,000 on gifts. , and about $ 24,000 meals. It is possible that all of these expenses are legal. The Gaetz campaign did not respond to The Daily Beast’s questions about spending. But if the DOJ looks at its reports on campaign spending, it can be difficult to explain a number of charges. The most mysterious is perhaps one of its smallest parking fees. During his recess in August 2018, it appears that Gaetz’s car was parked at an airport. On Thursday, September 13, 2018, Gaetz paid $ 382 to move out of the Republic parking garage at Pensacola International Airport, in his home district. The highest rate at the time was $ 11 a day, indicating that a car had been parked there for more than a month. (A driver at the garage in question told The Daily Beast that their system could only do one car at a time on a ticket, so it would not have been more than vehicles.) The submission indicates that Gaetz’s payment himself coming, and that He was compensated later that day. In four years of financial records, the Gaetz campaign paid for parking at no other time. “It’s weird,” Libowitz said. ‘Presumably he would drop someone off or take a shuttle or Uber. And if someone else picks up the car, why would Gaetz be compensated? This one needs an explanation. ‘The Gaetz campaign also dropped a total of about $ 3,000 in the four-star Balboa Bay Resort in Newport Beach, California, in the FEC submission program, starting in July 2018. Gaetz himself paid in advance for the first visit, and was subsequently compensated by the campaign. However, the only public report of a campaign-related Gaetz observation in the area is from October 26, 2020, when he addressed the Freedom Forum in Newport Beach. The FEC filing three weeks later reflects a $ 475 payment to the resort. Brendan Fischer, director of federal reform at the government’s watchdog in the Campaign Legal Center, told The Daily Beast that the FEC wants campaigns to make clear the initial transaction dates – not just the date the bill was paid . Gaetz cannot use public records to clean himself if they do not disclose the specific dates and spending. “This is something the FEC needs to meet,” Fischer said. ‘It’s hard to say on the face of who was traveling and for what purpose. It can therefore be very difficult to distinguish between a legal expenditure and personal use of funds from a public report. Fischer said these deviations are “the kind of thing prosecutors are going to look at” because they may indicate personal use of campaign funds, which is prohibited by federal law. “If the DOJ investigates the spending of its campaign, it will most likely seek documentation to support its own spending and compensation,” Fischer said. ‘It is permissible to use campaign funds to pay for travel and office expenses, but it is not permissible to use it for a’ sugar daddy ‘sludge fund. ‘One spending item that has risen recently is legal costs. The month after Greenberg was first charged – June 2020 – Gaetz paid the law firm Venable LLP $ 38,000, almost four times the amount he had paid to law firms over the past five years. In total, the campaign has laundered at least $ 64,400 to Venable for legal work since Greenberg was charged. Salon reported in October that the Trump organization apparently cut Gaetz an illegal sweetheart deal for the stay at the Trump International Hotel. Gaetz later told the Florida Phoenix, “I do not believe I stayed there,” and that the four separate charges – between $ 216.20 and $ 261.47, which are part of a credit card account on August 27 and specifically was designated for sleeping, possibly ‘related’ to food and drink for political meetings I did. ‘The campaign quickly submitted an amended report changing the dates of payments from 27 to 29 July to three consecutive days, and another on 1 August. The report also has “accommodation” for meals. In an Instagram photo that Gaetz has since deleted, he showed up in the hotel lobby on August 27, the original payment date, and he was also photographed on August 27 when he arrived at the hotel with a suit in the hand. $ 14,000 in expenses for a November 8, 2019 event for a Donald Trump Jr. book signing at Sandestin Golf and Beach Resort. It seems that Ali Thomas of the Congress Office, Ali Thomas, joined him for the trip, and he reimbursed nearly $ 1,000 in travel expenses. Thomas started the year as an intern at $ 57 a day, and by November 1, he was director of operations, at $ 84,000 salary. She still holds the position. According to FEC reports, this was the only time the campaign compensated her. However, there are not necessarily sneaky things to Gaetz’s campaign. With the information that the DOJ is investigating its campaign spending as part of its larger investigation, many of its most suspicious spending may need additional explanation. But even if all his documents are legal, they certainly do not exempt him from allegations that he paid for a 17-year-old to travel for an illegal sexual encounter, especially if these expenses could not be paid privately. these issues may be the least of Gaetz’s concerns, but they can still be damning, even if difficult to prove. Libowitz illustrated the difficulty of substantiating Gaetz’s innocence allegations by pointing to the case of Representative Duncan Hunter (R-CA), who was sentenced in January 2020 for diverting hundreds of thousands of campaign funds for his personal use – an investigation led by his organization , CREW, has started a complaint about the campaign’s finances. “The FBI and DOJ found more than twice as many things as we did years ago,” Libowitz said. ‘There is a limit to what you can learn from financial documents, and I do not think you will find a smoking gun in any direction without a subpoena or a clear explanation of it. But in my professional experience, members of Congress who do one thing badly tend to do many things bad. Read more at The Daily Beast. Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now! Daily membership of the beast: Beast Inside goes deeper into the stories that matter to you. Learn more.