Matt Gaetz suffers from delusions of adequacy and he frequently gets downright grandiose. You can’t blame him. He’s part of a political party which is so corrupt that it won’t take him off of the House Judiciary Committee at a time when he’s under federal investigation for sex trafficking of minors. In a true Trumpian paradox, Gaetz is in a position to deride the very federal agencies which are investigating him and which he is, almost comically, empowered to oversee. Such is politics in 2021.
During an appearance on Newsmax show Cortes & Pellegrino on Thursday, Gaetz pushed his latest conspiracy theory that the FBI had a role in “organizing and participating” in the Capitol riot and he said he’d written a letter to Christopher Wray to demand answers. Newsweek:
“The FBI clearly doesn’t have objections to selected releases of video and images from these days, but it begs the question: why is there not more transparency? What did the FBI know? And when did they know it?” Gaetz said.
“The question of whether or not the FBI animated some of the criminal conduct is one that is far more grave.”
Gaetz goes on to suggest that it is “reasonable to ask” whether the FBI had infiltrated a far-right group accused of taking part in the January 6 riots, in order to “bring that organization to the point of criminal conduct as a mechanism as to try and bring it down.”
He added: “The FBI has a long history of this, dating back to even the Civil Rights era, and I certainly hope our premier law enforcement organization is not actually working to violate federal law.
“We see an FBI and Department of Justice that I think has strayed from its original mission and now they’re engaging as political actors,” Gaetz said.
“I’ve been called a conspiracy theorist just for asking these questions, but whether it was the Russian hoax that was nonsense or the origins of the coronavirus at the Wuhan lab, I’ve got a pretty good track record of being right when I make pronouncements.
“And what I can say today is there was FBI infiltration of these groups and what we’ve got to decide is whether that infiltration led to more acute criminal conduct than would have otherwise occurred.”
Again, this is one of those situations that is so ridiculous as to be merely comical, if it was not so pernicious. Tucker Carlson is spreading this conspiracy theory on his show. He hasn’t come right out yet and stated that the Capitol riot was a false flag attack manufactured by the FBI for the purpose of making Donald Trump and all those peaceful MAGA tourists look bad, but he’s leading up to it. That’s the direction it’s all going.
The fact that Matt Gaetz is even still in a position to ask Christopher Wray for the time of day is appalling. But this is what it is nowadays. The GOP is a rotted, corrupt husk, crooks enabling crooks. And people like McCarthy and Gaetz exemplify this fact.
Just by the by, ABC News is reporting that Gaetz could be indicted as soon as July. Talk about life through the looking glass. And of course Tucker Carlson is portraying that as a revenge by federal authorities for the fact that Gaetz is purportedly demanding accountability.
But look at one curious detail here: Carlson may be defending Gaetz, but you haven’t seen him on Carlson’s show since he made that egregious faux pas about Carlson and his wife having had dinner with Gaetz and one of his paramours back in the day. Don’t lose sight of that fact. And don’t hold your breath waiting for Gaetz to show up on Fox News.
Oh I think Matt Gaetz will be showing up on Fox News soon enough.
For the same reason that he’ll be showing up on all the other news channels.
Faux Nuz has a nasty habit of not airing news they don’t like.
Oh Gaetz lost already.
Trump and the insurrectionists didn’ need anyone else to make them look bad. They accomplished it all by themselves.
Right, Matt. The FBI–under the direction of a Republican member of the Federalist Society who was appointed by Donald Trump (who rarely chose people to serve without expecting a certain “loyalty” to Trump)–worked to stage the insurrection and Trump’s speaking just before the MAGA folks decided to storm the Capitol building was merely a part of the whole elaborate plot?
I mean, yes, the FBI did do a lot of questionable things (to say the very least) in the past but, oddly enough, all those activities were directed at presumed ENEMIES of the government as well as people in organizations that sought to instill terror. The FBI did infiltrate the civil rights movement during the 1960s but it also infiltrated the KKK (the former due to beliefs that there were dreaded Commies acting behind the scenes, using the “poor Negroes” as a front to overthrow the government; the latter due to the fact that certain states weren’t doing enough to stop the Klan from killing Blacks and “n-word”-loving whites). But, especially in the last 2 decades, the majority of FBI actions have been directed at Muslim and Arab-American communities rather than the TRUE terrorists like the “Sovereign Citizens” movements and the various neo-Nazi groups that became emboldened on Jan 20, 2017 (you might recognize that date, Matty boy).
July cannot come soon enough for me!
What is wrong (as if I didn’t know) with America that they let these unhinged Qumquats are allowed to run around for months spreading pernicious conspiracy theories that clearly advocate violence and sedition?
Words can have deadly consequences and can fall under Brandenburg v. Ohio’s exception to free speech.
“…the landmark case Brandenburg v. Ohio, which held that ‘the constitutional guarantees of free speech and free press do not permit a State to forbid or proscribe advocacy of the use of force or of law violation except where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action’. Brandenburg is now the standard applied by the Court to free speech issues related to advocacy of violence.”
—https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clear_and_present_danger
Emphasis on “except where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action.”
The above article is a helpful primer on the history of first amendment Court decisions, well worth a perusal.
Congress has a “speech and debate” exception, which IMO should only apply on the floors of Congress. Elsewhere they get to play by the same rules as us peons.
PJ, Thanks for that addendum!
For how long will Brandenburg hold sway? The constitution is quite fluid. Depends upon the political make-up of its justices. After installing the theocrats I don’t think anything is engraved in stone and even if it were, stone can be broken.
He really is a dim bulb, isn’t he?
Mattie. U haven’t gone back to drinking & driving again & again & again & again….have you? Something’s not adding up.
The question is a reasonable one to put to the FBI, given their history, even if the questioner is an asshole.