Matt Gaetz equates sex trafficking investigation with earmarks in Ohio speech

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

Source: NBC News

STRONGSVILLE, Ohio — Rep. Matt Gaetz, the Florida Republican mired in controversy, told a crowd of Republican activists Saturday that sexual misconduct allegations involving him are as benign as legislative earmarks.

“I'm being falsely accused of exchanging money for naughty favors,” Gaetz said at the Ohio Political Summit, a gathering sponsored by the Strongsville GOP in suburban Cleveland. “Yet, Congress has reinstituted a process that legalizes the corrupt act of exchanging money for favors, through earmarks, and everybody knows that that's the corruption.”

-snip-

An audience of at least 400 in person and others online turned out for the event, billed as a major forum ahead of the 2022 midterm election. A dozen or so guests trickled out after hearing from conservative commentator Candace Owens, who spoke before Gaetz, who delivered the final speech of the afternoon. But Gaetz received a standing ovation from those who stayed, and a dozen or so others lingered afterward for autographs and selfies.

Several Republican candidates for governor and U.S. House and Senate, had planned to address the crowd but backed out in recent days. Representatives from their campaigns declined to say why on the record, but all of them had committed before Gaetz was added to the program. Another scheduled keynote speaker, Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., didn’t show.

Read more: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/matt-gaetz-equates-sex-trafficking-investigation-with-earmarks-in-ohio-speech/ar-BB1gLVLu?li=BBnb7Kz

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[DENVERPOPS]

1. Attention:

The Repub followers should just make sure to keep their children and teen age girls away from ANY Republican!!!!!!!!!!!

Benign is hardly what I would call their behavior.................

[AZLD4Candidate]

2. Define Chutzpah please.

[COL Mustard]

3. Chutzpah

The balls to do exactly what you're accusing someone else of doing, and doing it with a straight face.

[AZLD4Candidate]

10. Now apply it to Matt Gaetz

[SeattleVet]

7. Chutzpah...

the classic example of chutzpah was the boy who killed his parents, then threw himself on the mercy of the courts, asking for leniency because he was an orphan.

[AZLD4Candidate]

11. Now apply it to Matt Gaetz

[mahina]

14. Seriously?

[AZLD4Candidate]

15. It takes chutzpah to use a criminal investigation against you for human trafficking

and use it as a stump speech or campaigning.

Chutzpah, and a completely lack of shame.

[Iggo]

17. Okay, that's enough.

[lonely bird]

4. The doling of monies has existed for decades. This is nothing new.

Matt Gaetz has absolutely no morals.This is also nothing new.

[guillaumeb]

5. Pedophilia and rape are "naughty favors"? eom

[Journeyman]

6. When all this is over, Gaetz may end up with a mark permanently attached to his ears . . .

to warn others of the danger he poses.

[George II]

8. Boebert couldn't make it because her husband had a previous engagement exposing himself....

....to girls at their local bowling alley.

[Hekate]

9. No worries, GQP, if Gaetz had been a Dem & the "naughty favors" involved a 21 y.o. & a BJ...

...you would have had him dead to rights. However, IOKYAR.

[Roy Rolling]

12. Cretin

I was looking for the words describe him.

[AZ8theist]

13. In other news, Matt Gaetz equates child rape with inconvenient tee times on the weekend......

I cannot FUCKING WAIT for this fucking scumbag to be in prison. CAN NOT WAIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[karynnj]

16. In addition to there being no equivalence, Gaetz may be strategically trying to further demonize

earmarks. While absurdly trying to claim they are as bad as sex trafficking -- which he claims he did not do - he is somewhat accomplishing a goal. Almost everyone will ignore the outrageous attack on earmarks and either attack him on the charges or defend him as not yet indicted.

The fact is that earmarks were eliminated around 2007. At the time, Senators, including Obama, spoke of the difference between earmarks where the Senators (and Congressmen) supporting them are identified and those that are placed in bills (often in conference) without any ownership. To some degree, eliminating earmarks, means the executive branch has the ability to determine where money legislated is actually spent. An earmark - like the University of Chicago hospital - allows the legislature to provide resources to their constituents. A middle position of requiring that they "sign" for the earmark and defend why it is something worth requiring the executive branch fund out of the larger pot of money is very reasonable. It also has the added value that it allows the leadership to hold out a desired earmark as a carrot to get a needed vote on an issue where a Senator is on the fence.

With Gaetz, it is not something based on a serious analysis of the defensibility of earmarks, he is just looking for any sand or dirt to throw into the air - thinking it camouflages his own problems.

[AZLD4Candidate]

19. And you have a vast media empire in print, TV, radio, and online to give you cover

and the power of incumbency.