What strikes me most about the on-going Gaetz clown show isn’t the audacity but the irrelevance. Gaetz has moved full bore into Deep State grievance/conspiracy theory mode. It’s not about statutory rape or sex trafficking, he claims. The Deep State and the Elites are coming after him because he stands for the common man. As he wrote in his Examiner Oped, “They aren’t coming for me — they are coming for you. I’m just in the way.”
I don’t doubt this may gun up some number of people on the Trumpite right, though it’s notable that the great majority of folks in Trump/rightwing grievance world don’t seem interested. (Even Trump himself isn’t throwing him a lifeline.) But it just doesn’t matter. Federal law enforcement just works in a methodical and relentless way, often too relentless. Whether you’re winning news cycles or owning the libs just doesn’t matter. You can win every morning until the day you’re sentenced. State and local law enforcement is sometimes more sensitive to public opinion or political influence. But federal law enforcement just doesn’t work that way. If anything having a member of Congress in the crosshairs for a crime packed with public opprobrium makes them go more into overdrive. It just doesn’t matter. And he’s not really winning any news cycles anyway.
Of course while Trump was President this was equally true except when it wasn’t. Trump repeatedly pressured the Justice Department on prosecutions, though it’s not clear how effectively. But he could simply pardon people. And he did. Without Trump around it’s all just sound and fury signifying nothing.
We’ve heard about the PR team he’s retained for the scandal. But I still haven’t heard about a lawyer.
