Matt Gaetz performs according to his nature

The reason that's not a snapshot of the actual tweet is because Gaetz took it down.  I wonder why.

Commenters on Twitter immediately raised the question of whether Gaetz had engaged in witness tampering, which is a federal crime. Within minutes, Walter Shaub, the former director of the Office of Government Ethics, tweeted out the part of the federal criminal code that could apply:

[...]

Gaetz has been one of the most vocal Trump backers in the House, scheming with other Republican legislators to undermine the Trump-Russia investigation by promoting false conspiracy theories about the deep state. But this move goes beyond the deployment of diversionary distraction. It’s a heavy-handed and brazen attempt to intimidate a witness poised to provide explosive testimony about President Donald Trump. And it’s possible it’s a crime—which makes it a very Trumpy way of dealing with the president’s Cohen problem.

  Mother Jones

And it's stupid. At this point does he think revelation of girlfriends would change Cohen's testimony? I can't see that it does anything other than smear Cohen, and he's smeared himself enough. It just seems like a juvenile, nasty thing to do, perhaps to emphasize his loyalty to Trump. But since he took it down, it's obvious he realized it was inappropriately unethical at best and illegally unethical at worst.  (Gaetz is, of course, both juvenile and nasty.)

[Gaetz] denied to a Vox reporter that he was tampering with a congressional witness. “I’m witness testing,” Gaetz said. “We still are allowed to test the veracity and character of witnesses, I think.”

Cohen’s lawyer, Lanny Davis, said in a statement, “We will not respond to Mr. Gaetz’s despicable lies and personal smears, except to say we trust that his colleagues in the House, both Republicans and Democrats, will repudiate his words and his conduct. I also trust that his constituents will not appreciate that their congressman has set a new low—which in today’s political culture is hard to imagine as possible.”

I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for any Republicans to repudiate Gaetz' behavior.

"Witness testing."  I haven't heard that term before, but wouldn't that be something you do when the witness is on the stand?

 ...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:  Looks like Gaetz pre-owned himself.



UPDATE:

Or it could just be that Gaetz is just stepping on his own dick trying to pre-empt the big play Republicans plan for Cohen, effectively taking the wind out of their sails.  I bet they're happy.



Juvenile, nasty, and stupid.

UPDATE: