Farron Balanced
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Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz isn't out of the woods yet, even if the DOJ decided to not bring any charges against him after a years-long investigation. The House Ethics Committee - which is being run by Republicans - has decided to reopen their investigation into Gaetz's alleged wrongdoing, and it could lead to some serious problems for Gaetz down the road. But the investigation being launched by Republicans is very suspicious, as Farron Cousins explains. …
*This transcript was auto-generated. Please excuse any typos. It was recently revealed that the House Ethics Committee, which of course is run by Republicans cuz they control the house, but it was revealed that the House Ethics Committee has reopened their investigation into Matt Gaetz's conduct. Even though back in February of this year, the DOJ announced that they would not be bringing any charges against Matt Gaetz. Now we all know what the DOJ was investigating Matt Gaetz for, right? We had the Venmo payments, we had the parties where witnesses say he was doing a lot of drugs, he was meeting underage girls at the parties, sending them money on Venmo. Those were some of the allegations against Matt Gaetz. Um, and it also alleged, of course, that he had gone across state lines with a 17 year old. And so a lot of really shady behavior and witnesses that corroborated all of these stories. And of course, the receipts, the Venmo receipts. So, you know, some of it at least happened because the receipts were there. So we know he did send money, but he claims it was just helping out some, some friends or people he knew, whatever. Uh, and the D O J decided not to prosecute. So that makes it all the more weird that the House Ethics Committee, again, run by Republicans, has decided that they are reopening their investigation. Now, here's what they've, uh, what's been reported anyway, investigators from the House Ethics Committee have begun reaching out to witnesses as part of a recently revived investigation into Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida focused on allegations that he may have engaged in sexual misconduct, illicit drug use, or other misconduct, a source familiar with the house panel's work told CNN that the Justice Department's decision not to bring charges against Gaetz does not impact what the committee will and won't investigate. The committee plans to examine the same allegations they were looking into when they opened the investigation in 2021, which of course was when Democrats controlled the House Committee. But why, why now? Why suddenly, this is weird, right? The D o J was doing the real investigation that actually carried criminal penalties. The House Ethics Committee cannot send Matt Gaetz to jail. They can't even convict him. So what's the point of this? This is all highly suspicious to me and there's a couple possibilities about what's happening. So let's talk about it. Uh, first and foremost, this could be a complete sham investigation by the Republicans to look into it and then declare that Matt Gaetz is the most honest and clean person we've ever seen in our lives. We love him. He's great. We looked at it ourselves. He's totally clear and free to go. Uh, that would be option number one as to why Republicans are doing this to one of their own Option number two, and this is also very likely, Matt Gaetz is a thorn in the side of the Republican establishment, right? He's a member of The, the far Right Freedom Caucus. And the Freedom Caucus has basically been attempting to usurp power from establishment Republicans, like House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. So this investigation could be a way to say, you know what? Gaetz is outspoken even though he is only been there for, you know, six years, which really in the span of Congress isn't a long time. Um, he's got power for some reason. Uh, we need to dilute his power, take him down a couple notches, maybe get him outta the house altogether because he's screwing us over. So why don't we investigate him and see if we can come to different conclusions than what the DOJ came to. So that's option number two. Option number three is the least likely. And that is maybe these people grew a conscience. Maybe they realized that the DOJ mishandled this entire investigation. You had multiple witnesses, as I said, who corroborated these stories against Matt Gaetz.
