Appearing on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News program, Matt Gaetz claims a former Department of Justice lawyer named David McGee is attempting to extort $25 million from him and his family, claiming that a text message sent to his father on March 16th demanded money to make it all go away.
Gaetz went on to claim that his dad wore a recording device to a meeting at the law firm, Beggs & Lane, for which McGee works for, held at the law firm’s offices. The recording, Gaetz claimed, would exonerate him of all charges.
Gaetz said his father was going to wire $4.5 million to an account to be specified by McGee Wednesday, as a downpayment for help in making the case go away.
Asked specifically by Carlson if McGee was trying to extort money from the Gaetz family, Gaetz made a carefully worded statement: “I know there was a demand for money in exchange for a commitment that he could make this investigation go away along with his co-conspirators. They even claimed to have specific connections inside the Biden White House. Now, I don’t know if that’s true. They were promising Joe Biden would pardon me. I don’t need a pardon. I’m not seeking a pardon. I have not done anything improper or wrong.”
The wording of Gaetz’s response can be construed as a description of a lawyer asking for legal fees to get charges dismissed against a client. And there’s no rational explanation why Joe Biden would pardon an accused Gaetz.
“I’m not the only person on screen right now who has been falsely accused of a terrible sex act,” Gaetz told Carlson, who had been falsely accused by a mentally-ill woman of a sexual assault more than 20 years ago. “You were accused of something you did not do, so you know what this feels like.”
Gaetz went on to describe going to dinner with Carlson and his wife, in the company of a woman brought by Gaetz–“You’ll remember her,” Gaetz said to Carlson–whom Gaetz now claims is being “threatened by the FBI, told that if she would not cop to the fact that I was somehow involved in some pay-for-play scheme that somehow she could face trouble.”
“Providing for flights and hotel rooms for people of legal age who you are dating is not a crime,” Gaetz said.
Carlson replied, “I don’t remember the woman you’re speaking of or the context at all, honestly.”
Asked by Carlson, “They’re saying there’s a seventeen year old girl you had a relationship with. Who is this girl?” Gaetz was evasive: “The person doesn’t exist. I have not had a relationship with a seventeen year old. That is totally false.
“The allegation as I read it in the New York Times is that I traveled with some seventeen year old in some relationship,” Gaetz continued. “That is false and records will bear that out to be false.”
The accusation is not that Gaetz had a “relationship” with a seventeen year old; it’s that he had a seventeen year old travel across state lines to have sex with him. One doesn’t need to be in a relationship to have sex.
Gaetz’s explanation also hinges on the terminology of “traveling with” him, repeatedly saying he never traveled with a seventeen year old he was in a relationship with.
Carlson asked when the investigation began; Gaetz replied he didn’t know. Carlson asked when Gaetz learn about it. Gaetz replied, “Again, I- I- I… I really saw this as a deeply troubling challenge for my family on March 16th, when people were talking about a, a minor and that there were pictures of me with child prostitutes. That’s obviously false. There will be no such pictures. … Really on March 16th is when this got going from the extortion standpoint.”
You’ll note that Gaetz didn’t answer the question and attempted to create a false expectation that there were pictures of him with a “child prostitute.” He also reframed the question from the “extortion standpoint” without answering when he found out about the FBI investigation into his sexual conduct with a minor.
Gaetz claimed that the story was released in order “to quell” the extortion investigation Gaetz claimed started on March 16th. He says he’s being targeted for being an “outspoken conservative.”