Amid the hurly-burly of presidential dropouts, attempted presidential assassinations, and novel presidential conventions, the gears of Washington grind on.
A sideline moment of the winding last week in Wisconsin was a direct confrontation between Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) and his pet aversion, the former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.
“What night are you speaking?” Gaetz quizzed McCarthy. “Are you speaking tonight?”
“If you took that stage, you would get booed off of it,” he added. “You would get booed off the stage.” In a game-after interview with CNN, McCarthy shot back: “[Gaetz] looks very unhinged.”
The representative from Florida’s First District, of course, led the successful charge last autumn to defenestrate the then-speaker. Gaetz alleged a panoply of heresies—spending issues, foreign policy, etc—where McCarthy was said to be deficient in comparison to alternatives.
Gaetz eventually backed now-Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA).
McCarthy, as of late, has said the story is simpler. The Californian wouldn’t stop a House Ethics Committee investigation into years-old allegations against Gaetz (allegations for which he was never charged). But from the outside looking in, McCarthy’s side of the story would seem no clean tale of moral probity.
Far from being above the fray, McCarthy in private life has initiated a “revenge tour” of sorts, attempting to primary his former foes in Congress.
Perhaps most prominently, Charleston-area Congresswoman Nancy Mace—a former McCarthy acolyte turned ally of Gaetz et al.—survived a primary challenge in June. “I want to send him back to the rock he’s living under right now. He’s not part of America.… I hope I drive Kevin McCarthy crazy,” Mace told the Times.
Now the primary effort of the hardliners and the ethics investigation against Gaetz have apparently merged.
Congressman David Joyce (R-OH) is a member of the House Ethics Committee, which is probing Gaetz. The American Conservative found financial disclosures that reveal Rep. Joyce’s campaign and his leadership PAC donated a combined $7,000 to Gaetz’s primary challenger, Aaron Dimmock.
For his part, Gaetz told TAC: “It is no surprise to see Mr. Joyce, a stock-trading member of the ethics committee, funding my opponent. The ethics committee was hand picked by McCarthy and they will do his bidding in elections and in their witch hunt coming after me.”
There is evidence here of a $2,000 transaction from Friends of Dave Joyce (his campaign committee) and then $5,000 from Defending American Values Everywhere PAC (DAVE PAC)—his leadership committee.
What comes next is unclear.
Hellbound and Down 