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The Matt Gates story is getting significantly more interesting and significantly worse for
Matt Gates to catch you up.
A Republican congressman from Florida, Matt Gates, is now in the middle of investigations
into very serious possible crimes, including child sex trafficking.
Every time Gates speaks to try to plead his innocence, he seems to present new derogatory
information about himself.
He presents new possible crimes that at least some of us didn't even know he was under investigation
for.
And we have now learned, thanks to an investigation from The New York Times, that Matt Gates sought
a preemptive blanket pardon from Donald Trump at the end of Donald Trump's term.
Now, in retrospect, we know that at the time that Matt Gates sought this pardon from Donald
Trump, Gates was already under investigation.
We don't know whether Gates knew that.
Was it Gates knowing he was under investigation that caused him to seek the pardon from Donald
Trump?
Or was it Gates knowing he had committed crimes and wasn't sure whether they would ever be
investigated?
That caused him to ask Donald Trump for a pardon.
The New York Times reports that, quote, in the final weeks of Trump's term and Gates
sought something in return for his unending brownnosing support of Matt Gates.
That's my of Donald Trump.
That's my editorializing.
Gates privately asked the White House for blanket preemptive pardons for himself and
for unidentified congressional allies for any crimes they may have committed.
Around this time.
Gates was publicly calling for broad pardons from Trump to thwart what he termed the, quote,
bloodlust of their political opponents.
Justice Department investigators had begun questioning Gates associates about his conduct,
including whether he had a sexual relationship with a 17 year old which violated child sex
trafficking laws in an inquiry that grew out of the case of an indicted associate in Florida.
Now, here's the key line.
As I mentioned, it is unclear whether Gates or the White House knew at the time that Gates
was under such an investigation.
It is unclear who else Gates wanted pardons for.
He didn't tell the White House he was under investigation.
Whether or not he knew it remains a question.
But according to The New York Times, White House White House lawyers and officials viewed
the request for a preemptive pardon as a nonstarter that would set a bad precedent.
The latest idea is when Gates asked for a pardon for himself and others, the and others
might have been a way to camouflage his own criminality.
In other words, if I know that I have committed certain crimes or may be under investigation
for certain crimes, but I don't want to call attention to that, I could go to Trump and
say, sir, you know, as as he claims people do myself and a group of my colleagues are
all going to be persecuted for being a supporter of yours, pardon all of us.
And you frame it as a preemptive protection from like political prosecutions, knowing
that really the reason you want the pardon is because you may have broken child sex child
sex trafficking laws and maybe you even know that you're under investigation.
It's certainly an idea, and that is what some Trump associates are speculating went on.
Now, ultimately, Matt Gates didn't get it.
As I told you, people around Donald Trump thought that a preemptive blanket pardon for
Matt Gates would not be a good look.
And it was not something that Donald Trump ultimately granted.
So there's a few different layers to this.
Obviously, there's the superficial layer of, you know, asking for pardons in advance does
not project innocence.
That's someone with a guilty mind.
And of course, that's true.
The counter would be from the right that if you're anticipating bogus political charges,
you would look for a blanket pardon as protection, not because, you know, you committed a crime,
but because you anticipate that people from the other political party are going to come
after you.
That's just an argument, right?
Both sides.
A talking point, and it sort of becomes just an argument about the talking point, the bigger
picture here is it certainly seems as though Matt Gates must be heading to a massive historic
downfall of epic proportions based on what continues to be learned every single day.
You know, he goes on Tucker Carlson to clear his name.
He further incriminates himself.
He says, my travel records will exonerate me.
They raise even more questions.
Now we learn he was looking for a preemptive pardon at every opportunity.
It seems to get worse.
And logic would point to this guy's got to be going down, but maybe not.
Quite frankly, I think it is almost as likely that this guy has a shot at being a prominent
Republican who knows presidential nominee with the modern Republican Party.
You can never really tell what they will punish versus what they will reward.
And although clearly all signs continue to point to Gates is in a hell of a massive trouble
here.
How on earth does he get out of this one?
At the same time?
This is the Republican Party that we're dealing with and they are very quick to demand consequences
for those on the left, but not for those on the right.
This is an area where this is almost like a critique of the of the Democratic Party,
sometimes the Democratic Party, in order to show how they don't care who's doing the wrongdoing.
The Democratic Party has sometimes been too quick to demand punishment for those on the
Democratic side in order to show how not biased they are.
Arguably, the Al Franken situation is such an example.
So Gates might end up never being heard from again and resigning in shame or losing reelection,
going to prison.
Who the hell knows?
Or Gates might end up as the vice presidential nominee in 2024?
Nothing would surprise me at this point
in time.