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Andy Marlette: Oops, U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz did it again

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So the Republican who recently advocated for Congress to join the #FreeBritney movement is now under investigation for allegations of sex trafficking a minor. You can't make this stuff up.

Look out, Pensacola. April showers have arrived and Matt Gaetz is raining shame down upon our city once again.

And this time, with a major federal investigation probing allegations that Gaetz trafficked a 17-year-old across state lines, his most current scandal also might be his most serious one yet. 

Speaking of showers, what's the deal with prominent, wealthy Northwest Florida Republicans getting creepy with teenagers? First Gaetz-mega-donor and former Gulf Breeze mayor Ed Gray with the shower videos. Now Gaetz with the sex trafficking allegations. If this is what "conservative family values" results in, the innocent children of Northwest Florida might be much safer being raised in villages of hippie liberal heathens. 

Gaetz called journalists (including the resident cartoonist) the "enemy of the people." So what's that make politicians like Gaetz and Gray? "Enemies of the kiddos?" 

In hindsight, maybe voting for the man who Gaetz reviles more than any other — that boring, married, bald-headed Marine Corps veteran, Cris Dosev — wouldn't have been the worst choice Pensacola Republicans could have made. The only time you see Dosev traveling across state lines with teenagers is when he's taking his kids off to college or to visit them during their military deployment. 

Gaetz's case not helped by his 'no' vote in 2017

All sarcasm aside, the allegations facing Gaetz are abhorrent if true. At the time of this writing, Gaetz had taken to cable television to offer a Clintonesque denial of sexual relations with a 17-year-old girl, who he claims does not exist.

Gaetz's case has not been helped by the fact that in 2017, he inexplicably cast the lone "no" vote in the entirety of Congress against a major, bipartisan bill to help combat human trafficking. Afterward, Gaetz tried to rationalize that vote in a bizarre and rambling cellphone video he published to social media.   

Why I stood alone on a recent vote.

Posted by Matt Gaetz on Thursday, December 28, 2017

In a similar response to the current scandal, the congressman offered a convoluted counter-plot last week in which he claimed that his father, former state Sen. Don Gaetz was being extorted for $25 million by widely-respected Pensacola attorney David McGee, who is a partner with the Beggs & Lane law firm. In 2020, McGee won a historic $1.46 billion judgment against the nation of Iran on behalf of the family of a kidnapped and tortured FBI agent who vanished in the country more than a decade ago. By most accounts of the local legal community, McGee's reputation is beyond reproach. 

Local readers may recall that Beggs & Lane was often the go-to firm for the city of Pensacola under former Mayor Ashton Hayward. The firm led Hayward's explosive legal dispute with the Fish House, making mortal enemies with Pensacola Republican power-broker and Gaetz ally Collier Merrill in the process. McGee and the law firm also represented Hayward in a long and fruitless federal probe into questionable public corruption allegations that ultimately resulted in no charges. 

But all that is small 'taters compared to Gaetz being probed for sex trafficking and the congressman's imaginative story about Iran, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy colluding with real life Pensacola attorneys to scam Big Daddy Don Gaetz out of Matty Boy's inheritance. 

It all sounds crazy and none of it makes much sense at this point. But who knows, maybe it's all true. This is the Panhandle, after all, which is basically the Magic Kingdom on meth and fried mullet, a place where all your wildest dreams of political corruption can come true!

Gaetz case pales by comparison to Joel Greenberg's

Now, before anyone gets upset at irreverence for the myth of Pensacola's piousness and moral purity, you can take heart in the fact that the Gaetz scandal actually was born out of an even wilder case of political criminality way down yonder in Seminole County (which just so happens to be your loyal cartoonist's humble hometown).

The Orlando Sentinel has done extensive read-it-to-believe-it reporting on indicted Seminole County Tax Collector Joel Greenberg, who is accused of committing just about every crime any Floridaman could imagine. He currently faces 33 federal charges, the Sentinel reported. Embezzlement. Defrauding COVID relief programs. Bribery. Stealing driver's licenses to steal identities. Impersonating law enforcement. Stalking. And yes, sex-trafficking a minor. 

Which brings us back to Gaetz, who apparently has been buddies with Greenberg for years. The two of them can be seen sporting the same, soft, smarmy grin in a now-infamous photo with the elder and more accomplished American criminal, Roger Stone. Before either young official was investigated for alleged crimes, Gaetz had praised Greenberg as someone who would make a great future congressman.

If courts judged a man by his friends, Gaetz would be locked up already.  

Now, as joyful as it is to see notoriously terrible public officials collapse under the weight of their own lies and arrogance, you sincerely hope that allegations about sex-trafficking simply aren't true. Not for Gaetz's sake. But for the alleged victims, who would face a lifetime of psychological wounds and inner-warfare all because powerful and privileged men once abused the authority of public office in order to exploit her.

Investigation: Florida congressman Matt Gaetz reportedly being investigated for sexual contact with teen

Gaetz responds to investigation: Matt Gaetz responds to investigation that he reportedly had sexual contact with teen

And if Gaetz continues to spout incoherent tales about his father wearing a wire in an undercover mission for the FBI — allegations Beggs & Lane called "defamatory" on Wednesday — then Big Daddy Don Gaetz is also obligated to provide full and forthright explanations to the public, as well.

For too long, Papa Gaetz has been pardoned from liability for the incessant drama, controversy and dishonesty generated by his son, as if makeup-caked Matt was some half-rotten apple that accidentally took an awkward bounce a little farther from the father's austere tree of political dignity. Nonsense. 

The truth is, that through both financial support and immense regional political currency, Don Gaetz has intentionally propped-up, perpetuated and enabled Matt's disgraceful behavior in public office. Don has financed Matt's crazy and foisted it upon this entire community.

Whether or not the allegations in the sex trafficking probe are found to be true, it's possible that Papa Gaetz's money has paid for plane tickets, hotel rooms and alcohol that Baby Gaetz has admittedly provided to women as a self-proclaimed  "generous partner" when he was a "single guy" who was supposed to be representing the citizens of Northwest Florida, by the way.  

And let's not forget that the former state Senate president remains a powerful public official himself, holding seats on both the Florida Ethics Commission and Triumph Gulf Coast, which lords over hundreds of millions of dollars in BP oil spill penalties that local citizens, communities and elected officials have to bow and scrape to get a taste of. 

In other words, Don Gaetz is not some passive character in all this. He retains very real power over both public money and public policies, so if he has any knowledge or involvement in an investigation into sex trafficking allegations against his son, our congressman, the citizens of Northwest Florida have an absolute right to know.

Whatever results from the investigation, Matt Gaetz once again has humiliated Northwest Florida on the national stage. It isn't politics. It isn't leadership. It isn't legislating. It's an exhausting reality show audition of a perpetual adolescent. It's yet another public tantrum from a man-child who's neither been allowed to grow up nor earn what he's been given.

It has been reported that Gaetz has contemplated quitting Congress to go work on television. Well, let's get to it already. 

Pensacola deserves better. Pensacola deserves a break.

But if Gaetz is found to have taken part in the horrible criminal allegations that he is currently denying, Pensacola deserves to have the stain of those crimes shared by all those who have enriched and enabled this unfit and embarrassing congressman.