Two years in the past, The New York Occasions reported that Mr. Gaetz was the topic of a Justice Division investigation over allegations that the congressman had a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old and paid for her to journey with him, a violation of federal sex-trafficking legal guidelines. Mr. Gaetz denied the allegation and has not been charged.
Final month, Joel Greenberg, a Florida tax collector and Gaetz confidant who has been cooperating with the sex-trafficking investigation, was sentenced to 11 years in jail. It stays unclear what the sentence means for Mr. Gaetz, whose attorneys have tried and didn’t study from the Justice Division whether or not the case stays energetic or closed.
Mr. Gaetz has within the meantime propelled ahead, as fast to offend as ever. Final summer time he advised a convention of conservative faculty college students that abortion supporters are much less prone to get pregnant as a result of they’re unattractive. “No person needs to impregnate you when you appear to be a thumb,” he stated. “These persons are odious on the inside and outside. They’re like 5-2, 350 kilos, and so they’re like, ‘Give me my abortions or I’ll stand up and march and protest.’”
But he may be as fast to shock as to repel. He has acquired accolades from animal rights teams for his opposition to federally funded animal testing. Colleagues on the Home Armed Companies Committee say they regard him as a productive member, and he was not too long ago seen on the Home ground having a prolonged dialogue with Consultant Dan Crenshaw, a Texas Republican and former member of the Navy SEALs, about offering veterans with entry to psychoactive medication.
Throughout votes within the Home chamber, he tends to take a seat by himself, with no seen indicators of discontent. Buddies of Mr. Gaetz keep that three phrases of political seasoning on Capitol Hill, along with his 2021 marriage to Ginger Luckey, a gross sales analyst he met the earlier yr at Mar-a-Lago, former President Donald J. Trump’s non-public membership in Palm Seashore, Fla., have matured the congressman’s strategy to politics and the way in which he conducts his private life.
A Bombastic Adolescent
Republican colleagues bear in mind how swiftly Mr. Gaetz sought to ingratiate himself in 2017, his first yr in Congress, with Speaker Paul D. Ryan — how, at a dinner Mr. Ryan hosted for the brand new members, Mr. Gaetz confirmed exaggerated concern for a minor sports activities damage Mr. Ryan had suffered on his hand.
Mr. Gaetz additionally displayed a lawyerly deftness when it got here to cajoling the Home Steering Committee into awarding him a seat on the Armed Companies Committee. However he is also boorish, as when he bragged about his sexual conquests and even confirmed images of them on the Home ground, in response to one member.
