January 6th public hearings just turned very ugly for Matt Gaetz
Today’s January 6th Committee public hearing focused primarily on testimony from former Trump DOJ officials, who spelled out the illegal things that Donald Trump and Jeffrey Clark asked them to do. But at the end of the hearing, the committee took things in a different direction by revealing evidence supporting the media’s prior reporting that certain House Republicans sought pardons from Trump. Front and center: Matt Gaetz.
Emails, along with testimony from various people from the Trump administration, spelled out that Matt Gaetz sought a broad blanket pardon from Trump. According to Trump White House lawyer Eric Herschmann, Gaetz requested a pardon that’s “as broad as you can describe. Mark Meadows’ top aide Cassidy Hutchinson also testified that Gaetz sought such a pardon.
Matt Gaetz, who is under DOJ criminal investigation for alleged sex trafficking of underage girls and other crimes, has previously disputed that he sought a Trump pardon. It’s not clear why the January 6th Committee is suddenly pushing Gaetz front and center.
Typically, the committee has made allegations of this type against an individual, then allowed the individual in question to respond in panicked fashion, only to turn around and lay out additional evidence against that person in a future hearing. Our guess is that Gaetz is somehow about to become Exhibit A in all of this.
