Florida representative Matt Gaetz is currently being investigated for possible sex trafficking by the FBI. The situation doesn't look good for him, as his former ally Joel Greenberg agreed to cooperate with the feds as part of a plea deal that included admitting guilt in a slew of federal crimes.
But Gaetz is an out-of-the-box thinker (provided that box is the federal statutes around sex with minors) and he's come up with a novel solution to his problem: feds can't be watching if there aren't any feds.
Gaetz tweeted then deleted a suggestion that believers in police abolition should think about defunding the FBI.
"If Democrats want to defund the police, they should start with the FBI," Gaetz wrote before sending his words to oblivion a minute later.
The tweet manages to be perfectly Gaetzian, in that it's nakedly self-serving with a soupçon of ignorance on top.
If you think the true believers in the police abolition movement aren't talking about the FBI — the harass Martin Luther King, Jr. to the ends of the Earth bureau, the killed a man's wife, son and dog over a bench warrant bureau — you simply don't know anyone who believes in defunding the police.
Gaetz, for his part, doesn't believe in defunding the police. However, he has been a proponent of strong reform including the banning of chokeholds and a system that would keep disciplined and fired cops from moving to another department.
“While I think we can fine tune elements to ensure we don’t defund the police, that we don’t make our communities less safe, I do think there is not a legitimate defense of chokeholds, of lynching or bad cops that get shuttled around,” Gaetz said during a hearing on police reform last year.
This article first appeared at Orlando Weekly.
Support local journalism in these crazy days. Our small but mighty team is working tirelessly to bring you up to the minute news on how Coronavirus is affecting Tampa and surrounding areas. Please consider making a one time or monthly donation to help support our staff. Every little bit helps.
Subscribe to our newsletter and follow @cl_tampabay on Twitter.
