The Daily Beast
Matt Gaetz said his “travel records” would exonerate him. Not so fast.
Caroline BrehmanWhen it was first reported last week that Rep. Matt Gaetz was under investigation for his sexual involvement with a 17-year-old, the Florida Republican said his travel records would exonerate him. “It’s a horrible allegation and a lie,” Gaetz told Tucker Carlson on Fox News a week ago. “The New York Times is publishing a story that I traveled with a 17-year-old woman, and that is proven to be false. People can look at my travel records and see that this is not the case. ”What Gaetz knew – or should know – is that there are no such public records, at least not when it comes to his private life. , campaign filings. Among all of Matt Gaetz’s revelations last week was news that the Justice Department is investigating the Florida Republican’s potential use of campaign funds for personal expenses. And the reality of these campaign finance reports is that they raise more questions than they answer about these supposed scandals. “Spending around Gaetz’s campaign just doesn’t say what he wants,” Jordan Libowitz, Citizens’ communications director for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a campaign finance watchdog, told The Daily Beast. “One, the reports do not offer specific information; and two, it is not clear whether he is even saying that his campaign documents will clear him. If he is paying out of pocket, we will not know the answers without a subpoena. ”As Gaetz knows, his campaign files lack any information that would prove that he never participated in a sex ring or paid for a minor’s trip. What his records show, however, is that Gaetz had a close relationship with Joel Greenberg – the Seminole County tax collector indicted on sex trafficking charges. The Daily Beast reported last week that on Sunday, September 2, 2018, Greenberg asked one of his tax office employees to get an emergency replacement driver’s license for Gaetz, which Greenberg said had lost his identity the night before. . “Amy- is there any way to help one of our congressmen get an emergency ID or DL replacement on Tuesday at 2pm? ”Greenberg wrote in the text. But Gaetz is not a resident of Seminole County. The first information on the county driver’s license website says that the office “will only prosecute ‘Seminole County Residents’ for ALL driver’s license or ID card services. No exceptions will be made. “The website informs applicants that if they are unable to provide proof of residence,” a driver’s license or ID card will NOT be served. “The website also makes it clear that the county office” It is NOT directly affiliated with the local state of Florida. Driver License Office ”and serves only“ to perform very limited portfolio issuing functions. ”Seminole County is located downtown, just outside Orlando, several hours from the Panhandle district That Monday was Labor Day, and the congressman was taking Tuesday’s flight to return to DC after campaigning in his home district for re-election in November. August and September reveal just one expense for an Orlando seller: a $ 439.91 charge for the luxurious Rosen Center Hotel, paid on September 28 as part of the monthly credit card bill campaign revenue. The exact date of the stay cannot be known without Gaetz producing receipts – or without the DOJ producing a subpoena. Libowitz said the hotel’s expense is “difficult to pay” under campaign finance laws that prohibit converting funds for personal use “It makes sense if he had to get his ID,” said Libowitz. “But I don’t know why an acting congressman wouldn’t be able to do this alone, in his own county, and why he would have to find a friend to do this for him.” As Libowitz pointed out to The Daily Beast, the archives do not tell the full story. “You can only use campaign funds for efforts that go towards an election. So, under the theory that he went to Orlando to get a license illegally, he would have a difficult case to make – that it is appropriate to use his campaign to circumvent state law, ”he said. “And that would be overkill.” According to The Daily Beast’s analysis, Gaetz’s campaign committee – Friends of Matt Gaetz – spent over the past four years about $ 57,000 on airfare, $ 57,000 on accommodation, $ 9,000 on various trips, $ 40,000 on gifts and about $ 24,000 in meals. It is possible that all of these expenses are legitimate. Gaetz’s campaign did not answer questions from The Daily Beast about spending. But with the DOJ reviewing its campaign spending reports, some of the charges can be difficult to explain. Perhaps the most mysterious is one of the smallest – a parking fee. During the recess of August 2018, it appears that Gaetz’s car was parked at an airport. On Thursday, September 13, 2018, Gaetz paid $ 382 to check out the Republic’s parking lot at Pensacola International Airport in his home district. The highest rate at the time was $ 11 a day, indicating that a car had been parked there for over a month. (A garage manager in question told The Daily Beast that his system could only make one car at a time, so it wouldn’t be multiple vehicles.) The record indicates that the payment came from Gaetz himself, and that he was reimbursed more. late that day. Notably, in four years of financial records, the Gaetz campaign has not paid for parking anywhere else, at any other time. “It’s weird,” said Libowitz. “Presumably he would send someone to drop him off or take a bus or Uber. And if someone else took the car, why would Gaetz be reimbursed? This needs an explanation. ”The Gaetz campaign also dropped a total of about $ 3,000 at the four-star Balboa Bay Resort in Newport Beach, California, FEC filings show, starting in July 2018. Gaetz himself paid in advance for the first visit, and was later reimbursed for the campaign. However, the only public report of a Gaetz sighting related to the campaign in the area is October 26, 2020, when he spoke at the Freedom Forum in Newport Beach. FEC records reflect a resort payment of $ 475 three weeks later. Brendan Fischer, director of federal reform at the Campaign Legal Center’s oversight body, told The Daily Beast that the FEC wants the campaigns to make clear the dates of the initial transactions – not just the date the bill was paid. Gaetz cannot use public records to clean himself if they don’t reveal specific dates and expenses. “This is something that the FEC should take,” said Fischer. “It is difficult to tell in the face who was traveling and for what purpose. Therefore, it can be very difficult, just from a public report, to tell the difference between a legitimate expenditure and the personal use of funds. ”Fischer said these aberrations are“ the kind of thing prosecutors will look at, ”because they can indicate personal things using campaign funds, which federal law prohibits. “If the DOJ is investigating their campaign spending, it is very likely that they will look for documentation to cover their own expenses and reimbursements,” said Fischer. “It is permitted to use campaign funds to pay for travel and office expenses, but it is not permitted to use them for a secret ‘sugar daddy’ fund.” One expense item that has recently increased is legal fees. A month after Greenberg was first indicted – June 2020 – Gaetz paid the law firm Venable LLP $ 38,000, almost four times the amount he paid law firms in the previous five years. In all, the campaign has disbursed at least $ 64,400 to Venable for legal work since Greenberg was charged. Salon reported in October that the Trump Organization appeared to have made an illegal deal for Gaetz about accommodation at the Trump International Hotel. Gaetz later said to Florida Phoenix: “I can’t believe I stayed there” and that the four separate charges – between $ 216.20 and $ 261.47, part of a credit card bill of August 27 and specifically designated for lodging – may have been “associated with food and drinks for political meetings that I was having.” The campaign quickly presented an amended report that changed the payment dates to three consecutive days from July 27th to 29th, and another one on July 1st. The report also changed “accommodation” to “meals.” A deleted Instagram photo showed Gaetz in the hotel lobby on August 27, the date of the original payment, and he was also photographed on August 27 arriving at the hotel with the which appeared to be a suit in hand. The campaign also picked up $ 14,000 in expenses for a November 8, 2019 event for a book signing of a Donald Trump Jr. book at Sandestin Golf and Beach Resort. Gaetz, Al i Thomas, seems to have joined him on that trip and was reimbursed nearly $ 1,000 in travel expenses. Thomas started the year as an intern with $ 57 a day and, on November 1, was director of operations, with $ 84,000 salary. She still holds the position. FEC reports show that it was the only time the campaign repaid it. Again, there is nothing necessarily nefarious in any of Gaetz’s campaign records. However, with information that the DOJ is examining its campaign spending as part of a broader investigation, many of its most suspicious expenditures may require further explanation. But even though all of his records are legitimate, they certainly did not exempt him from allegations that he paid for a 17-year-old to travel for the purpose of an illegal sexual encounter, especially when those expenses could have been paid in private. these issues may be the least of Gaetz’s concerns, they can still serve to be damning, even if they are difficult to prove. Libowitz illustrated the difficulties of verifying the facts of Gaetz’s allegations of innocence by pointing to the case of Deputy Duncan Hunter (R-CA), who was convicted in January 2020 for diverting hundreds of thousands of campaign funds for his personal use – a investigation that your organization, CREW, started with a campaign funding claim. “The FBI and DOJ found more than twice as many things as we did, going back years ago,” said Libowitz. “There is a limit to what you can learn from financial documents, and I don’t think you will find a smoking gun in any direction without a subpoena or a clear explanation of it. But in my professional experience, members of Congress who do a bad thing tend to do a lot of bad things. ”Read more at The Daily Beast. Subscribe now! Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper into the stories that matter to you. To know more.