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(Photo by Andrew Harnik-Pool/Getty Images)
Prosecutors declined to bring sex trafficking charges against Representative Matt Gaetz earlier in the fall, citing a lack of reliable evidence. Now that his longtime associate Joel Greenberg received an 11-year sentence for sex trafficking a minor, however, there’s a heightened chance that Greenberg could offer testimony strengthening a future case against the Florida legislator.
In other words, one way or the other, this isn’t a great time to publicly hitch your star to the Gaetz bandwagon.
So it comes as zero shock that America’s resident beer-loving jurist with deeply suspect views on women is right there to join Gaetz at the frat party. This is literally the free square on your 2022 Bingo card.
Politico, a news outlet that couldn’t see the forest for the trees from 30,000 feet, noted Gaetz and Kavanaugh partying together, but only after dropping around 700 words about the persistent non-story of Hunter Biden’s dick pics and another 1800 or so about various random news items. Only then did the site report it with all the gravitas of Us Weekly “Just Like Us” feature — “Kavanaugh and Gaetz, They’re Just Like… Each Other!”
That’s actually not fair. Us Weekly has standards.
— SPOTTED at Matt and Mercy Schlapp’s annual Christmas party at their Alexandria home on Friday night: Justice Brett Kavanaugh, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) and Ginger Gaetz, Sean Spicer, Alex Acosta, Sebastian Gorka, Stephen and Katie Miller, Chad Wolf, Greta Van Susteren and John Coale, Laura Schlapp and Bryan Wells, Brendan Carr, Rep.-elect George Santos (R-N.Y.), Erin and Nick Perrine, Erik Prince, Ziad Ojakli, Peter Davidson, Steve Holland and Ben Terris.
Oooh. “Spotted.”
This paragraph is so riddled with problems that “where’s Nestor?” is the absolute least of the questions raised.
Matt Schlapp runs the American Conservative Union, which at this point is synonymous with its event brand CPAC. The Federalist Society may be transparent, but at least it tries to cast itself as a non-partisan debating society to excuse its tight patronage connections to right-wing federal judges. CPAC is so uninterested in hiding its ideological bent that it held an event in Hungary as a victory lap for its authoritarian government. Remember when conservatives lost their collective minds when RBG suggested that Donald Trump was “a faker.” By way of analogy, Kavanaugh going to this party is like Ginsburg giving the keynote at the Democratic convention.
Politics aren’t even necessary to see the problem with even the appearance of buddying up to Gaetz. Kavanaugh sits on the bench amid a cloud of credible sexual assault allegations that were never really investigated because Kavanaugh threw a fit about it and the majority of the Senate just shrugged. Which is to say that rubbing elbows with someone very recently involved in a probe into the sex trafficking of minors — and who might end up being investigated again — sends a very specific message about the justice and the legitimacy of the Court as a whole and it’s not a great one.
For that matter, partying with Alex “I Let Jeffrey Epstein Walk” Acosta doesn’t look good for either Kavanaugh or Gaetz under the circumstances. When you’re trying to tout that the federal investigation around you ended without charges, the original Epstein prosecutor isn’t who you want photobombing you. Good heavens, Eric Prince is looking like the least problematic connection for Kavanaugh because he only runs a company with employees convicted of murder/manslaughter on the job (Trump pardoned them on his way out the door… obviously).
The most troubling, if not the most salacious, fellow reveler was Stephen Miller of the America First Legal Foundation because Miller has matters before the Supreme Court… RIGHT NOW! It’s a small world and lawyers run into judges at social events, but the ethics ring a little differently when the encounter happens at the local bar association or some museum’s rubber chicken fundraiser or something, and when it happens judges run into ideological advocacy organizations at a party for ideologues. If for no other reason than it’s a lot easier to get in some ex parte lobbying when everyone in the room is of the same mind and not likely to squeal. The very appearance of an impropriety like that should matter.
Or at least it would matter if there were any ethical codes to speak of at the Supreme Court.
Which there aren’t.
Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.
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