Matt Gaetz

Matt Gaetz
U.S. Representative from Florida's 1st Congressional District From: January 3, 2017 – present
Predecessor	Jeff Miller
Successor	Incumbent (no successor)
Former State Representative from Florida's 4th District From: April 13, 2010 – November 8, 2016
Predecessor	Ray Sansom
Successor	Mel Ponder
Information
Party	Republican
Religion	Baptist

Matthew Louis “Matt” Gaetz, II, born May 7, 1982 (age 39), is a Republican U.S. representative representing Florida's 1st congressional district since 2017.

Gaetz gave a notable speech in May 2019 advocating for an America First foreign policy. He has criticized Congress' prioritizing Russia/Ukraine issues over securing the U.S. southern border.

Gaetz has been targeted by neocons for among other things his opposition to Saudi Arabian influence on American politics, his opposition to war with Iran, his open contempt for George W. Bush, and his public feud with Liz Cheney. Their influence may have resulted in him being excluded from Trump's impeachment defense team.

He indicated in December 2020 that he would object on the House floor to the certification of Joe Biden based on Electoral fraud in the United States presidential election, 2020.

Despite all of the above, Gaetz does have some liberal views on social issues. In 2015, while serving in the Florida state legislature, he sponsored a repeal on its ban on adoption by homosexuals,. In 2019, he defending Rep. Katie Hill (D-CA) before she resigned over a sex scandal. Gaetz also defied conservatives by voting to increase visa caps for high-skilled (i.e., high-paid) workers (2019 roll call h437) and he voted against showing support for the ICE border agents (2018 roll call h337). Although, these were relatively minor bills, and Gaetz has been largely a staunch conservative on immigration. Some of those views on social issues have been reversed, an example would be voting against the radical Equality Act.

In 2021, he was accused of taking a seventeen-year-old girl across state lines for sex, which prompted an FBI investigation. Gaetz denies these claims and has stated that they are the product of an extortion scheme targeting him and his father, former Florida State Senate President Don Gaetz.[1] In the months prior to Donald Trump's departure from office, Gaetz is alleged to have sought a pardon from the President, although both men have denied that such a request was ever made.[2] Meanwhile, leaked texts indicate the possibility of Israeli Embassy involvement in the alleged extortion scheme, which in turn was centered around efforts to raise money to get the now-deceased FBI agent Robert Levinson released from Iranian custody. All parties involved in the alleged scheme have denied that whatever they requested or demanded amounted to extortion; and the Israeli consulate employee involved in the scheme has claimed that he didn't know about the allegations against Gaetz until shortly before they were made public, in the process implying that he may not have been "kept entirely in the loop" about the situation.[3]

External links

• Campaign Website
• House Website
• Profile at Ballotpedia