Plot twist: Joel Greenberg secretly flipped on Matt Gaetz awhile ago
Last week indicted Florida politician Joel Greenberg’s attorney announced in court that Greenberg was planning to cut a plea deal against Matt Gaetz. Now, in a new plot twist, the New York Times says that Greenberg actually flipped on Gaetz last year. This is notable for a number of reasons.
First, it appears that federal investigators wanted Greenberg’s cooperation to remain a secret, or else Greenberg’s lawyer wouldn’t have been so coy about it in court last week. The lawyer didn’t actually lie, as the Times says that Greenberg has been cooperating since last year but hasn’t yet formally negotiated a plea deal.
Second, this gives new context to how investigators found their way to Gaetz’s various alleged crimes, because now it turns out Greenberg was actively pointing investigators in the right direction.
Third, this means that Matt Gaetz could end up being indicted sooner than we would otherwise have expected. It’s a fool’s game to try to guess precisely when the Feds will indict anyone who’s under investigation, because the Feds tend to take their time and build an overwhelming case before indicting people. But while we were previously under the impression that the Feds would have to wait for Greenberg to cut his deal before he would give them the goods on Gaetz, it turns out the Feds have had Greenberg’s evidence against Gaetz for quite some time now.
Finally, this makes clear that the media is still succeeding in digging up the details of the Matt Gaetz scandal. Earlier today we pointed out that there hadn’t been any major breaks reported in the case for a few days. But now that lull appears to be over. Now we’ll see whether the evidence that Greenberg gave up on Gaetz ends up leaking out to the media, or whether we’ll have to wait for the seemingly inevitably Gaetz indictment to see all the evidence.
