It appears that this is as close as we’ll get to the real Matt Gaetz story: his acquaintance, the former tax collector Joel Greenberg, was caught abusing his office to make fake IDs and concealed weapons permits, which led to the discovery of numerous crimes committed by Greenberg in office, financed with money he embezzled and revolving around prostitution and, apparently, trafficking minors to public figures.  Greenberg told Barr’s DOJ he could implicate Gaetz in exchange for leniency, and the present investigation into Gaetz was opened.

Gaetz’s father Don was then approached by “former” DOJ attorneys and told they could make his problems go away if he gave $25 million to fund the rescue of American hostage Bob Levinson from Iran.  Bob Kent would lead the rescue mission, and the payment would appear to be for a service, rather than a bribe to prosecutors.

Seven months ago, I clipped together some videos with Gaetz and Scott Adams that go back in time through these allegations, including the infamous Tucker interview, which can be watched here.  Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska was targeted with the same scheme, down to the dollar, according to Gaetz, and he wasn’t the first.  Newsweek suggests that the Levinson ransoms had become a running joke at the FBI.

The first thing to ask is what evidence Greenberg had implicating Gaetz.  He gave the DOJ thousands of photos and videos and years of transaction records, after which Gaetz’s records were subpoenaed and witnesses brought before Congress, and we’re told the records and testimony show that Gaetz slept with a 17-year-old.

Enough of that evidence is now public to see that the case is another media ruse.  The drift of it is that there’s a history of Gaetz sending money to women he had relationships with, some or all of the time through Greenberg, some or all of whom were introduced to him by Greenberg.  Gaetz transferred funds to two of them using Venmo when he was single, and one said she saw him with a minor.

Venmo transaction records with the two adult women are shown, and the low-attention-span reader is led to believe that this shows Gaetz paying (and sleeping with) the minor, since one of them talked about a minor.

They say they were hooking, Gaetz says they were his girlfriends, and there’s nothing in the memos to indicate who’s telling the truth (nor would Greenberg’s pictures and videos).  Gaetz’s money being sent to the same women repeatedly over time suggests a long-term relationship, but the women say they were prostitutes.

Apparently there were four more women interviewed, and one of them claims she and Gaetz had relations when she was a minor.  But she “reportedly“ represented herself as an adult to Greenberg (on a website), who then introduced her to Gaetz.

The woman on the Venmo records who claimed she saw Gaetz with a minor also said he didn’t know it and that when he found out, he stopped until she turned 18.  What I’d like to know, if it isn’t all completely made up, is whether she’s the same girl Greenberg made a government-quality fake ID for.  He told the court he made one for a 17-year-old Gaetz slept with.  Did they use it to fool Gaetz into sleeping with a minor?  Because that’s how it sounds.

Greenberg fabricated state IDs for numerous “young women,” but we’re not told how young or for what purpose.  Why did he hold thousands of self-incriminating records for years after?  Was he running an entrapment operation?

Lt. Col. (retired) Tony Shaffer says this is a common practice:

Something we’ve known ... here in Washington, is that there are overlapping interests which will use criminal networks such as pedophiles for political purposes.  I don’t know if you’re familiar with the term “brownstoning.”  Brownstoning is where you have the traditional honeypot, you may have a Congressman enticed to sleep with a female ... what they do then is to try and get you in bed with an underage girl, telling you she’s only 20.  And then they videotape that, then you are theirs.

So this brownstoning thing has become something we need to examine as a methodology that’s been used, I believe effectively, to subvert political figures here in town.

Looking closer at the $25-million extortion, we can see more or less what they tried to do.  They set Matt up, apparently failed to acquire kompromat, and then (I think) made up stories of what would have happened if it had worked based on their experience with other public figures.

It’s possible that Matt fell for it, and they want to put him in line without expending the actual blackmail.  If that’s the case, then they managed to keep him out of the A.G. office without expending it.  But the trajectory so far is remarkably similar to the Bragg-Merchan case against Trump, which was also spearheaded by the DOJ indicting a third party (Michael Cohen).

Either way, the investigation would have ruined Gaetz’s life just by airing the allegations publicly, and they sent lawyers to solicit a bribe to make it go away.  Had the Gaetzes “made it go away,” there’d be no guarantee the charges wouldn’t resurface later, if Matt got out of line, and that appears to be the point.  Greenberg would get a reduced sentence, and the Deep State would be able to leverage Matt any time they wanted, because then he’d be guilty of bribery on top of the underlying charges with the 17-year-old, and paying the bribe would evidence his guilt on those charges.

So it was never about the money; it was about controlling Congress, and the $25 million was a down payment, after which Matt Gaetz would pay them with his votes.

Don Gaetz contacted local FBI and wore a wire to his next meeting with the former DOJ lawyers, two of whom were later convicted for the extortion.  But he was apprehensive, thinking Matt could get in trouble for what would be a bribe were it not an FBI sting operation, and he got it in writing that he was transferring the money for the FBI.

The FBI or DOJ leaked the investigation (what the ex-DOJ lawyers were offering to cover up) to the New York Times almost immediately after he put it in writing, protecting the lawyers from the more serious charges that would have been pressed if the money changed hands.  If Don hadn’t put it in writing, would the investigation still have leaked?  Or, as Mel Witte suspects, was the FBI’s counter-sting a busted setup?

The DOJ eventually dropped its charges on Matt, but Congress under Kevin McCarthy revived them, and that’s where we are.  It’s the word of a congressman versus the word of prostitutes, they’re propped up by Gaetz’s known enemies in Congress, and it’s as clear as day that those congressmen are corrupt.

Congress was not to release its Gaetz report until he resigned from Congress, which may have been a move to prevent that.  This is a good exploration of the scenarios.  They left the door open to releasing it anyway if Gaetz weren’t confirmed as AG, before he withdrew.  His announced plans not to rejoin Congress are not binding.

Image: Matt Gaetz.  Credit: Gage Skidmore via Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0.