Did the State Dept Fund Matt Gaetz's Extortionists? (feat Arthur Bloom)
Apr 28, 2021
Raheem Kassam
23.8K subscribers
https://youtu.be/WJgdv-1Medk
The Matt Gaetz story, after one month, looks worse and worse for the political establishment. No accusers, multiple shifts in the storyline, and now a paper trail back to the State Department?
Arthur Bloom, from The American Conservative, joins us to discuss.
t’s now been the better part of a month since it broke in the New York Times that Matt Gaetz was being investigated for sex trafficking a minor, and he still has yet to face an on-the-record accusation.
Since then, the minor has morphed into a “former minor”—it turns out she was 18.
Gaetz was also accused of sharing revenge porn of a former girlfriend, including by Katie Hill, whom Gaetz had previously defended in her own revenge porn scandal. Two of that girlfriend’s friends told Politico it wasn’t revenge porn, and that she told them “this is the best I will ever look in my life.”
So the two most dramatic claims of the Gaetz scandal seem to be false, and we are still without an on-the-record accuser. Given Gaetz’s reputation as a playboy, and the leakiness of this investigation, you’d think something substantial might have come out by now.
The girlfriend Gaetz was accused of sharing revenge porn of, according to Politico, also fears the “former minor” was recording calls attempting to incriminate the congressman. It also now appears that Joel Greenberg, the Seminole County tax collector who has been indicted on a slew of charges, was paying for the “former minor’s” legal fees.
Another friend of Greenberg told Politico he thought messages to him involving the “former minor” “felt like a setup.”
So we have two, albeit unnamed, sources who believe Greenberg or the “former minor” he was paying were trying to incriminate them. And that “former minor” he was paying is the one who accounts for the apparently untrue child prostitution allegation.
What does this look like to you?
Greenberg’s lawyer has also pointed the finger at Gaetz, strongly implying the tax collector had flipped on him, saying outside the courthouse recently, “I am sure Matt Gaetz is not feeling very comfortable today.”
It’s a mystery to me, given what this all seems to look like, why Gaetz hasn’t pointed the finger right back at Greenberg.
***
Up until now, the Joel Greenberg situation and the bizarre scheme to bilk Don Gaetz for $25 million in an Iranian hostage rescue have been considered separate things in the media. I’m not sure why. The note to Matt Gaetz’s father specifically links the two, as do the messages published by TAC that indicate Bob Kent’s friend who works at the Israeli consulate had inside knowledge of the Greenberg investigation before it broke in the New York Times.
There are other aspects of the Bob Levinson rescue business that have so far escaped mention by the media, but are worth considering. Bob Kent, the man at the center of the alleged extortion effort, probably had reason to believe he was operating with at least the implicit sanction of the U.S. government. You don’t go on Chris Cuomo’s show and make reference to an operation to spring a prisoner out of Iran, which would be illegal without USG approval, without it.
The U.S. government’s approval may have been more than just implicit: According to a senior Trump administration official, Kent was approved to receive $75,000 from the State Department for services related to the Bob Levinson case. A State Department spokesperson declined to comment on this.
While we can’t assume the State Department knew about the subsequent $25 million ask, that a federal government contractor is accused of extorting a U.S. congressman is deeply troubling.
***
A few more points about the background of the Levinson rescue effort are also worth reviewing here. First, as a matter of public record, it isn’t clear that Levinson was or is actually in Iran. Statements from the State Department, including by Hillary Clinton, as well as resolutions from Sen. Marco Rubio, consistently say he’s being held “somewhere in Southwest Asia.” When President Barack Obama discussed the Levinson case with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, an unnamed official close to the investigation told CNN, “We have every reason to believe that he’s alive and that the Iranians control his fate,” which is an odd turn of phrase to use for someone being held in Iran. The partisans of the Levinson rescue effort in the United States will say his lack of inclusion in the 2016 prisoner exchange is just evidence that the Obama administration didn’t really care about him, but it’s hard to square that with the president bringing it up at the highest level.
Second, we should note that the ask to Don Gaetz, in amount ($25 million) and purpose (to get him out of legal trouble in the United States), is identical to the one the FBI approached Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska about in mid-2008. That doesn’t prove it came from the same people, but it’s perhaps a bit suggestive. Deripaska told John Solomon in 2019 that he believed Levinson was dead.
cont
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/the-gaetz-scandal-isnt-about-matt-gaetz/
>Since then, the minor has morphed into a “former minor”—it turns out she was 18.
former minor
wtf?
hahahah
Iran is free
Potus really did flip Iran in 2018!
They are leaking this shit now and I bet they have a whole bunch moar.
sorry Gretchfags
Journalist Charlie LeDuff discusses his investigation of Michigan Gov. Whitmer secret trip on 'Tucker Carlson Tonight.' #FoxNews #Tucker
Apr 29, 2021
Michigan Gov. Whitmer went to Florida after warning citizens not to; Tucker reacts
https://youtu.be/l7pzDIMYmZ8
>https://twitter.com/Kredo0/status/1387942588574060546
Leaked audiotape of Iranian foreign minister Javad Zarif indicates he had no knowledge of covert Israeli military strikes before former secretary of state John Kerry provided him with the information, new details that contradict the State Department's recent defense of Kerry.
These details are likely to further fuel calls from leading Republicans for Kerry's firing or resignation. The New York Times reported that Zarif said on the tape that Kerry told him Israel launched 200 airstrikes against Iranian interests in Syria. The Times did not provide further details on that issue. But an independent translation of the audiotape commissioned by the Washington Free Beacon shows that Zarif went on to clarify that he had no prior knowledge of these Israeli strikes before Kerry told him.
"Kerry told me that Israel had launched 200 airstrikes against you [Iran]," said Zarif. "You didn't know?" asked his interviewer. "No, no," he replied.
These new details contradict top State Department officials, who have repeatedly said the information was already in the public domain and not classified.
"If you go back and look at press reporting from the time, this certainly was not secret, and governments that were involved were speaking to this publicly on the record," State Department spokesman Ned Price said on Monday during a press briefing.
The following day, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the strikes "were all reported in the press at the time, so it is utter nonsense." He also accused Republicans of trying to "play politics with this."
Kerry denied the allegations in a Twitter post earlier in the week.
This revelation is likely to heighten calls for Kerry to resign from his current post as the Biden administration's climate envoy.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas), who is spearheading efforts to pressure Kerry into resigning, said, "If this tape is verified, it would signal catastrophic and disqualifying recklessness by Envoy Kerry to Foreign Minister Zarif that endangered the safety of Americans and our allies."
"John Kerry must resign immediately," Rep. Jim Banks (R., Ind.), a member of the House Armed Services Committee, told the Free Beacon earlier this week. "The investigation should be retrospective."
Reps. Lee Zeldin (R., N.Y.), Andy Barr (R., Ky.), and Ann Wagner (R., Mo.), all members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, wrote to the State Department's inspector general on Wednesday to demand an investigation into Kerry.
"The State Department must investigate the massively alarming allegations that John Kerry leaked information to Iran on covert Israeli military operations. If it's proven that Kerry actively undermined one of America's staunchest allies, he needs to resign from the Biden administration immediately and have his security clearance revoked," Zeldin said in a statement.
https://freebeacon.com/national-security/zarif-had-no-knowledge-of-israeli-strikes-until-kerry-told-him-translation-reveals/