Tag: illegal drugs
Matt Gaetz

Trump Defiant As Women Reveal Gaetz Sex Payments, Illegal Drug Use

The Trump transition team is doubling down in defiance, proclaiming the president-elect’s nominee for Attorney General will become the nation’s next top law enforcement officer, even after an attorney who represents two women says his clients told the House Ethics Committee that then-Congressman Matt Gaetz paid them for sex, and one says she saw the Florida Republican having sex with a minor at a house party.

“She testified [that] in July of 2017, at this house party, she was walking out to the pool area, and she looked to her right, and she saw Rep. Gaetz having sex with her friend, who was 17,” Florida attorney Joel Leppard told ABC News (video below).

“Just to be clear, both of your clients testified that they were paid by Rep. Gaetz to have sex?” ABC News’ Juju Chang asked Leppard.

“That’s correct,” Leppard replied.

“The House was very clear about that and went through each. They essentially put the Venmo payments on the screen and asked about them. And my clients repeatedly testified, ‘What was this payment for?’ ‘That was for sex,'” Leppard said.

ABC News’ Jay O’Brien on Monday added, “We also know this attorney says that his clients told the House committee that they witnessed parties, that there were illicit drugs allegedly there, and then, of course, that they witnessed those alleged sexual encounters that Matt Gaetz has denied.”

The Trump team is not backing down.

“Matt Gaetz will be the next Attorney General. He’s the right man for the job and will end the weaponization of our justice system,” Trump transition spokesperson Alex Pfeiffer told ABC News in response to the latest news. “These are baseless allegations intended to derail the second Trump administration. The Biden Justice Department investigated Gaetz for years and cleared him of wrongdoing. The only people who went to prison over these allegations were those lying about Matt Gaetz.”

The Department of Justice did not “clear” Congressman Gaetz, it declined to bring any charges.

Gaetz has denied all allegations.

Last week Leppard called for the House Ethics Committee to release the report on its years-long investigation into the Florida Republican congressman who resigned immediately after President-elect Trump nominated him. In general, the ethics committee will not release a report if the subject is no longer a member of Congress.

“As the Senate considers former Rep. Gaetz’s nomination for attorney general, several questions demand answers,” Leppard said, ABC News reports. “What if multiple credible witnesses provided evidence of behavior that would constitute serious criminal violations?”

Another attorney, John Clune, who “represents the former minor at the center of the probe,” the one with whom Gaetz allegedly had sex with when she was a minor, “called for the release of the Ethics Committee’s report on Thursday,” ABC added.

As for Gaetz’s nomination, ABC News noted, “President-elect Trump has repeatedly urged GOP leadership to bypass the traditional confirmation process through recess appointments, whereby Trump could appoint his cabinet while Congress is out of session.”

The ethics committee has said it was investigating allegations that Gaetz “may have engaged in sexual misconduct and/or illicit drug use, shared inappropriate images or videos on the House floor, misused state identification records, converted campaign funds to personal use, and/or accepted a bribe, improper gratuity, or impermissible gift, in violation of House Rules, laws, or other standards of conduct.”

It is widely believed the committee also investigated allegations Gaetz may have engaged in sex trafficking of a minor and sex with a minor.

On his website, Leppard last year wrote:

“’Statutory rape’ is a term referring to sexual activity between an adult and a minor below the legal age of consent. But what defines this age?”

“In Florida, the age of consent is 18. So, any sexual engagement with someone under 18 by an individual 18 or older is considered statutory rape, even if the minor consented.”

He also referred to Florida’s “Romeo & Juliet” law, which “is designed for those close to age, emphasizing genuine youthful relationships.” It does not appear Gaetz would have been protected by that law given he was older than 24 at the time of the alleged act.

Watch the video below or at this link.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

An Offer Florida Legislators Can’t Refuse — Or Can They?

Gov. Rick Scott’s crusade to drug-test cash welfare applicants is turning out to be another thickheaded scheme that’s backfiring on Florida taxpayers.

The biggest beneficiaries are the testing companies that collect $10 to $25 for urine, blood or hair screening, a fee being paid by the state (you and me) whenever the applicant tests clean — currently about 97 percent of the cases.

The law, which easily passed the Legislature this year, was based on the misinformed and condescending premise that welfare recipients are more prone to use illegal drugs than people who are fortunate enough to have jobs.

Statistically, the opposite is true, despite the claims of Scott and Republican legislators who cheered this unnecessary and intrusive law.

The Department of Children and Families reports that since July, when the drug-testing program started, only 2.5 percent of welfare applicants have failed.

By contrast, about 8.9 percent of the general population illegally uses some kind of drug, according to the 2010 National Survey on Drug Use and Health.

This substantial disparity in favor of the unemployed is not an anomaly. Thirteen years ago, the Florida Legislature funded a pilot drug-testing project targeting poor residents who were receiving temporary cash assistance from the state. Of the nearly 8,800 applicants who got screened for drugs, fewer than 4 percent tested positive. That little exercise in class-bashing cost taxpayers about $2.7 million.

Either the governor didn’t know about the earlier study, couldn’t handle the math or just didn’t want to be bothered with the facts.

However, here are some new numbers that even a sixth-grader can understand:

When the law was passed, the DCF said the new drug-screening law would result in about 4,400 tests a month, or 52,800 a year, at a charge of $10 to $25 each.

Applicants initially pay for their own tests, but they’re reimbursed by the state if the results of the drug screens are negative. If the current rate of failure holds steady at a measly 2.5 percent, Florida taxpayers will be on the hook for 97.2 percent of the tests, between $515,000 and $1.27 million annually.

This is not the scenario presented by Scott and others like Rep. Jimmy Smith of Inverness, who justified the law by wrongly implying that welfare recipients have higher drug-use rates than the rest of us. Good luck finding an office building in Tallahassee where only 2.5 percent of the workers smoke pot in their leisure time.

The support for the drug-testing law — and the polls say it’s popular — is based on the reasonable notion that people who are struggling to find a job shouldn’t be spending a dime on dope. Whether you can legislate sobriety or common sense is highly debatable, but the more pressing question is whether such laws are ultimately worth the expense to government.

So far, the state hasn’t offered any figures on how much money we’re “saving” by drug-testing welfare applicants. Each month the number of those seeking cash assistance varies, and the amount of each payment depends on the circumstances and size of the family.

But with such a small percentage of applicants testing positive, the state will be lucky indeed if the amount of denied welfare benefits exceeds the true costs of administering the law, which go well beyond the urine and blood screens.

Taxpayers are also paying the governor’s legal fees to defend a predictable (and winnable) lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the blanket drug-testing requirement.

A Navy veteran who’s a single father in Orlando, joined by the American Civil Liberties Union, charges that Scott’s law allows “unreasonable and suspicionless searches” because it’s used against all cash welfare applicants, regardless of whether or not they show evidence of drug use.

Not surprisingly, the staff of the Florida House raised a similar concern when the measure was being written. And, not surprisingly, grandstanding lawmakers shrugged it off.

Some judges haven’t been so quick to do so. In Michigan, a drug-testing program aimed at welfare recipients was struck down by a federal court, citing privacy rights in the Fourth Amendment.

Back in 1997, the U.S. Supreme Court likewise relied on the Fourth Amendment when voting 8-1 to nullify a Georgia statute requiring all political candidates to take a drug test.

Here in Florida, Rick Scott’s campaign promise of mass job creation is at least coming true for professional urine samplers. However, in addition to being sued over drug-testing welfare parents, Scott also faces a court fight for ordering random substance screening on thousands of state workers.

Interestingly, the governor’s pee-in-the-cup mandate doesn’t apply to the one bunch that whizzes away more tax dollars than anyone else — the legislators who pass such useless laws.

I say line up all 160 of ’em for a patriotic whiz-fest at the Capitol clinic. You think more than 2.5 percent might test positive? Let’s find out.

And I’ll pay for it out of my own pocket. Seriously.

(Carl Hiaasen is a columnist for the Miami Herald. Readers may write to him at: 1 Herald Plaza, Miami, Fla., 33132.)

(c) 2011, The Miami Herald Distributed by Tribune Media Services Inc.

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