Donald Trump has shown a willingness to defend almost anyone who is willing to defend him. When it comes to the Capitol insurrectionists, he went as far as saying that rather than attacking the police officers, they were hugging and kissing them.
Matt Gaetz, though, presents a new challenge. Few are more sycophantic towards Trump. And while the former president may have trouble remembering the Florida congressman’s name, it is still likely that he could come out in support of him.
Gaetz, though, has been accused of sexual misconduct with a teenager. Trump’s allies, according to Maggie Haberman, don’t want him to touch this situation.
CNN host Jim Sciutto asked the New York Times scribe, “Congressman Gaetz is a staunch and vocal ally of President Trump. Any sense how this news is being received by the president or people in his orbit?”
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“The only other person I can think of that I have seen handled an investigation this way is Donald Trump, under investigation by the Mueller team,” the journalist responded. “But he was president. And it’s a little different the protections you have as president, versus anyone else.”
Haberman continued:
“In terms of how Trump and his folks are handling it, they are still processing the information. There are some people around President Trump, and President Trump himself, who like Matt Gaetz a lot, and people wary of him in the former president’s orbit. The former president’s first impulse will be to want to defend him and suggest that this is political, despite the fact it was Bill Barr under whom this investigation started. There are others around the former president who are cautioning him to wait and see what, if anything else, comes out.”
Todd Neikirk is a New Jersey based politics and technology writer. His work has been featured in psfk.com, foxsports.com and hillreporter.com. He enjoys sports, politics, comic books and spending time at the shore with his family.
