Johnny McEntee, according to people familiar with his testimony, told investigators that Gaetz told him during a brief meeting “that he is being investigated or that he is being investigated,” without specifying who was investigating Gaetz. McEntee added that Gaetz told him “he didn’t do anything wrong, but they’re trying to make his life a living hell, and you know, if the president could pardon him, that would be great.” Gaetz told McEntee that he had requested a pardon from White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows. Asked by investigators if Gaetz’s request for a pardon was in the context of the Justice Department’s investigation into whether Gaetz violated federal sex-trafficking laws, McEntee replied, “I think that was the context, yes,” according to the people. who know the testimony that he spoke. on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters. The testimony is the first indication that Gaetz was specifically seeking a pardon for his own report on the Justice Department’s investigation into whether he violated sex-trafficking laws. His public stance in the final months of the Trump administration has been far less specific, repeatedly calling for broad preemptive pardons to prevent potential Democratic investigations. McEntee testified that Gaetz met with him briefly one night and discussed the pardon issue, but McEntee could not recall whether their conversation took place before or after the Jan. 6, 2021 riot, according to people familiar with the testimony. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) first got involved in politics a decade ago. It didn’t take him long to find stardom in the Republican Party. (Video: Drea Cornejo/The Washington Post, Photo: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post) The Justice Department’s investigation into whether Gaetz paid for sex, paid for women to travel across state lines for sex and had sex with a 17-year-old girl began in the final months of the Trump administration with the approval of prosecutor. General William P. Barr. The investigation stemmed from a federal investigation of Gaetz’s friend, who is now convicted of sex trafficking. Gaetz denied paying for sex or having sex with a minor as an adult. McEntee did not respond to repeated requests for comment. Neither Meadows nor his attorney immediately responded to requests for comment. A spokesman for Gaetz declined to talk about the testimony or whether Gaetz discussed a pardon with McEntee or Meadows, instead responding that Gaetz never directly sought a pardon from Trump. What you need to know about the sex trafficking investigation involving Matt Gaetz “Congressman Matt Gaetz advocated for many other people publicly and privately at the end of President Donald Trump’s first term,” the spokesman wrote in an email. “As for himself, President Trump addressed this malicious rumor more than a year ago by saying, “Congressman Matt Gaetz never asked me for a pardon.” Representative Gaetz continues to support President Trump’s statement.” The House Select Committee also declined to comment. Gaetz has not been charged with any crime, but Joel Greenberg, Gaetz’s associate and former tax collector for Seminole County, Florida, pleaded guilty to six criminal charges, including sex trafficking of a minor. Greenberg has agreed to fully cooperate with prosecutors and testify in court and has been providing investigators with information about Gaetz since 2020, the Washington Post previously reported. Joel Greenberg, a former tax collector for Seminole County, Florida, pleaded guilty on May 17 to sex trafficking of a minor and a host of other crimes. (Video: Reuters, Photo: Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel via AP and Jabin Botsford/Reuters) “The last time I had sex with a 17-year-old girl, I was 17,” Gaetz previously said. On November 25, 2020, weeks after Trump lost the presidential election, Gaetz told Fox News that Trump “should pardon everyone from himself to his administration officials to Joe Exotic if he has to.” Cassidy Hutchinson, a top White House aide to Meadows, told the House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack that she recalled Gaetz and Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) who were both advocating for a “full pardon.” for legislators. who attended a December 21, 2020 meeting at the White House to discuss efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. In the previously broadcast testimony, he said they also supported pardons for “a handful of other members who were not at the meeting on the 21st.” of December”. Hutchinson added that Gaetz, however, had been “personally pushing” for a pardon “since early December.” But the focus of that pardon request was not clear from Hutchinson’s testimony. “I’m not sure why Mr. Gaetz would contact me to ask if he could have a meeting with Mr. Meadows about receiving a presidential pardon,” she added. Brooks, who pleaded guilty in an email to a White House aide at the time, defended his actions in a statement after Hutchinson’s testimony, saying, “There was concern that Democrats would abuse the justice system by prosecuting and imprisoning Republicans. » arguing in Congress over the certification of the election. Eric Hersman, Trump’s former White House lawyer, told investigators he also believed Gaetz was asking for a pardon, according to an excerpt of testimony played at one of the committee’s public hearings. “The general tone was that we might get fired for being defenders of, you know, the president’s positions on these things,” Hersman recalled. “The pardon he was debating asking was as broad as you can describe, from the beginning — I remember it is — from the beginning of time to the present day of all things. Then he mentioned Nixon. And I said that Nixon’s pardon has never been so broad.” Gaetz was ultimately not pardoned by the former president.
