Posted on 03/31/2021 7:03:07 AM PDT by RandFan
Tucker Carlson on Tuesday called his interview of Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) one of the oddest in his career after inviting the congressman on his show to discuss an investigation he is facing for an alleged sexual relationship with a 17-year-old.
“If you just saw our Matt Gaetz interview, that was one of the weirdest interviews I have ever conducted,” Carlson said to his viewers after the segment on his Fox News show “Tucker Carlson Tonight.”
On Tuesday news broke that the Department of Justice was investigating whether Gaetz “had a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old and paid for her to travel with him,” three sources briefed on the probe told The New York Times.
Gaetz, in an Axios story later that day, denied the allegations but confirmed that he was under investigation.
Gaetz said that the accusations were part of an “extortion effort against my family for $25 million ... in exchange for making this case go away.”
He repeated those allegations on Carlson’s show.
“I know that there was a demand for money in exchange for a commitment that he could make this investigation go away along with his co-conspirators,” Gaetz told Carlson.
“They even claimed to have specific connections inside the Biden White House,” he added. “Now, I don’t know if that’s true. They were promising that Joe Biden would pardon me. Obviously, I don’t need a pardon. I’m not seeking a pardon. I have not done anything improper or wrong.”
Gaetz suggested the extortion plot could be tied to attempts to damage him politically, pointing to the fact that after news of the investigation broke, Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) asked that Gaetz be suspended from the House Judiciary Committee.
“But what I am troubled by is the real motivation for all of this,” Gaetz said to Carlson. “You know, just tonight, Ted Lieu, a Democrat, was calling on me to be removed from the House Judiciary Committee. I believe we are in an era of our politics now, Tucker, where people are smeared to try to take them out of the conversation.”
Gaetz told Carlson there have been similar attempts to use law enforcement to intimidate him, something he said the host should be aware of since it came up while Carlson and Gaetz were at dinner together once.
“I can say that actually, you and I went to dinner about two years ago, your wife was there, and I brought a friend of mine, you will remember her,” Gaetz said. “And she was actually threatened by the FBI, told that if she wouldn’t cop to the fact that somehow I was involved in some pay-for-play scheme that she could face trouble. And so I do believe that there are people at the Department of Justice who are trying to smear me.”
Carlson said he had no recollection of that event.
“I don’t remember the woman you are speaking of or the context at all, honestly,” Carlson said.
It was clear, after the segment ended, that Carlson was nonplussed by the interview he had just conducted.
“That story just appeared in the news a couple of hours ago, and on the certainty that there is always more than you read in the newspaper, we immediately called Matt Gaetz and asked him to come on and tell us more, which, as you saw, he did,” Carlson said about the interview. “I don’t think that clarified much, but it certainly showed this is a deeply interesting story, and we will be following it. Don’t quite understand it, but we will bring you more when we find out.”
Gaetz’s public statements about extortion on Carlson’s show and elsewhere may only make things worse for him, said one of the New York Times reporters who broke the story.
“You would think that he would be wanting to work with the FBI and you would think he would want to keep this quiet,” Katie Benner, who covers the Justice Department for the Times, said in an appearance on “The Rachel Maddow Show.”
“So you have to put this all into context and say that in doing this and basically blowing up an FBI investigation into people trying to extort his family, you know, he has both complicated that investigation and also cast aspersions on something that was serious enough that Attorney General [William] Barr approved it," Benner added.
The reason for the full public disclosure by Matt Gaetz is that the investigation was leaked to the press, thus compromising any criminal payoff of the extortion act.
Most interesting that this comment was made by Times reporter, Katie Benner
when the leak was published by the very same Times .
Coincidence ? - .. I think not !
Gaetz shot the legs off of this story going any further, right Katie ?
Just in case anyone else wondered...
Nonplussed:
“(of a person) surprised and confused so much that they are unsure how to react.”
The democrats and media couldn’t make bogus lies stick on Trump so lets try it on this one cheap tricks left so silly.
What fool would want to work with the KGB (Read: FBI) .
I strongly suspect that a few members of the U.S. Supreme Court are also being blackmailed by the socialist cabal.
And, it’s quite apparent who those individuals are.
Yeah right! “Trust” the FBI? Are you NUTS?
Going public was the right thing to do.
He’s 38! At the least it’s gross. An old man preying on a 17 year old girl? I hope that doesn’t become normalized.
Now if she would just explain why any law-abiding citizen would trust the FBI as far as I can throw a piano...
The four latest heads of the FBI: Robert Mueller, James Comey, Andrew McCabe and Christopher Wray. This group should have their photos on the wall at the Post Office.
I don't think Tucker appreciated Gaetz bringing Tucker into the story, not once but twice. Tucker handled it pretty well, though.
Yes I always liked Tucker because he was witty and charming but he was a country club Republican.
“If this story is true, he had no intention of marrying her. Any man his age who sleeps with a teenage girl is using her for sex.”
And, of course he would be the first one in human history to do such a thing. But consensual sex in not illegal.
Did he do it? Did he do it knowingly — know she was seventeen at the time?
What if he did it, but she was a day short of being eighteen? Twelve hours? The age eighteen is a legal fiction of sorts, not a divine law or a law of nature.
I personally don’t care if he did it and did it knowingly. In this day and age and especially for him, it would have been a stupid thing to do.
What is hideous, the Biden administration and the democrats are promoting much, much worse at the border and no one in elective office is taking them to court. They just point out the problem, like that will stop it.
Right? My only question is would LAZ hit it?
Is lazamataz still around?
For me it’s almost completely cold. Haven’t listened much to any of them since 11/2020
v. National Review - not a boatload of difference. Or cruise ship of difference. "Ahoy matey…."
Include Fox in that list. I don’t trust Carlson, or Fox. Illusion of opposition. It’s Controlled Opposition. Gaetz is being targeted because he IS ACTUAL OPPOSITION.
The fact that the left is evil and doing evil things in no way excuses anyone else for what he does. Gaetz couldn’t find someone closer to his own age, or does being a wealthy politician give these men such egos that they have to multiple sex partners to show how important and powerful they are? Morals still matter, or at least they should.
or:
NORTH AMERICAN
informal
(of a person) not disconcerted; unperturbed.
It is one of /those/ words.
But the def you listed is the one used in the article.
/word-nerd
“sexual relationship with a 17-year-old
Is that still a crime?”
99% of us senior 18 year old boys in high school were doing all we could to get in the pants of 15-17 year old Freshman through junior girls.
My college freshman dorm roomate went home to go to pron with his spohmore gf he started dating when he was a senior and she was a freshman.
Look at all the old songs from the 70’s that talked about 16 year old girls and celebrated it. Dr. Hook, Kiss-Christine 16
Different time back then.Today the same boys would be thrown in jail.
mosaicwolf said it well. But I will repeat
“You would think that he would be wanting to work with the FBI .....”
What fool would want to work with the KGB (Read: FBI) .
*********************************************
Once the stories start to run in the NYT it would become an even tougher decision. Who - in this day and age - would agree to meet with the FBI? I am wondering if he has a lawyer with him for these meetings.
And I wonder if he is better off responding to the allegations in person; a lot of people have responded to this kind of stuff via lawyer/s.
Just curious. Why do folks rely on any third party source (Fox, Newsmax, etc) to keep them informed? Why do folks have a ‘favorite’ news channel?
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