Alleged Matt Gaetz extortionist gets criminally indicted

| 7:00 pm EDT August 31, 2021
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Why hasn’t Matt Gaetz been criminally indicted yet? Reporting earlier this month from ABC News and other sources revealed that the case against Gaetz was taking longer than expected because cooperating witness Joel Greenberg had provided so much evidence against Gaetz. This comes alongside earlier reports that Gaetz’s ex-girlfriend is also cooperating. Now Gaetz may have another name to worry about.

Back when the Matt Gaetz scandal first became public, he claimed the entire thing was nothing more than an extortion plot on the part of a man named Stephen Alford. Gaetz asserted that Alford made up the underage sex trafficking allegations and threatened to go public unless Gaetz’s father paid $25 million to make the whole thing go away – which Alford promised would include a presidential pardon from Donald Trump.

Now the FBI has announced today that Alford has indeed been criminally indicted for a $25 million fraud scheme. Matt Gaetz and his father are not mentioned in the press release, but the details make clear that this is the same scandal.

Matt Gaetz will surely claim that this vindicates him, but that’s not the case. Just because Alford has been indicted for trying to scam the Gaetz family for $25 million, it doesn’t cast any doubt on the validity of the criminal allegations against Gaetz. After all, those allegations didn’t come from Alford; they’re coming from Greenberg and other cooperating witnesses.

The real problem for Matt Gaetz is that with Alford now criminally indicted and facing prison time, Alford could end up deciding to cut a plea deal in exchange for leniency. In such case Alford would need to give up everything he has on Gaetz. So now Gaetz has to worry about the potential for yet another cooperating witness against him.