“Charlatan, “fraud,” “petulant,” “agent of chaos,” “clown.””, “a smart guy with no morals”. Normally when qualifiers like this are used for a politician they come from the opposition. In the United States, however, they are republicans those who have used those and other pearls to talk about their colleague Matt Gaetz, he far-right congressman that launched the motion to dismiss Kevin McCarthy that has left the House of Representatives without a speaker, has paralyzed Congress and has exposed the civil war that is consuming the conservative formation.
That rebellion against McCarthy led by Gaetz, joined by seven other Republicans, has turned the spotlight on this 41-year-old Florida politicianone of the most faithful allies and squires of Donald Trumpof whose message and style he is both a follower and defender and an outstanding student.
Under this renewed attention it has become evident andThe deep disdain and even contempt that arouses among many of his party colleagues, some of whom They now want him expelled from the House. Scrutiny of problems that have under investigation by the Ethics Committee of the Lower House. But it is the spotlight that Gaetz has precisely sought and exploited since he arrived on Capitol Hill in 2017.
Scandals
Son of a prominent and wealthy Republican politician who became president of the Florida Senate, Gaetz worked as lawyer and went state congressman before elected in 2016 from Florida’s deeply Republican District 1. And there nothing seems to make a dent in the support he has among conservative voters, who have re-elected him every two years, even when he has been marred by scandal.
In 2021, the House Ethics Committee launched an investigation into allegations against Gaetz that included inappropriate sexual conductconsume of drugshe personal use of campaign fundsthe possible acceptance of a bribery and have shared on camera images of naked women. These investigations were paralyzed when the Justice Department opened its own investigation into Gaetz, suspected of having raped laws against sex trafficking In maintaining relations with a minor under 17 years of age and with other women paying, accusations that he denies.
The Justice investigation (for which Gaetz had requested a preventive pardon from Trump) was closed in February of this year without charges being filed against him, but the Congressional Ethics Committee later reopened its investigation, which continues. AND McCarthy has repeatedly hinted that Gaetz’s crusade against him is personal, as refused to end those investigationswhich began when the chamber was under Democratic control.
Mutual antipathy
The antipathy was mutual, and he came from afar. It became evident already during the Trump presidency, when McCarthy and Gaetz (who celebrated their wedding at Mar-a-Lago) competed for the then president’s favors.
The animosity escalated even further when the Republicans gained control of the Lower House and Gaetz led the movement that forced McCarthy to have to undergo 15 votes to be elected, something that the Californian only achieved after making concessions to the hardline, including the to allow a single congressman to present the motion to remove him, which Gaetz did this Tuesday.
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In these nine months Gaetz, whom even McCarthy associates recognize as a smart man”, he has continued to pressure the now former president of the House, even when he placed him on the Armed Services Committee and the Judiciary. He has known how to mobilize the fervor of the ultra wing against the apparatus like few others. And the two have clashed often, both publicly and privately or in meetings in front of other Republicans.
Although many believe that much of the congressman’s actions are designed merely to attract attention and raise fundsraising your profile when you say you want run for governor of Florida in 2026, Others have suggested that it was really a personal crusade. “His target is Kevin,” a friend of Gaetz told ‘Politico’ a few days ago. “That’s it, and everything else revolves around that.”