Matt Gaetz’s father backs his claims of extortion plot: report

Don Gaetz, the father of Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), backed his son’s claims that his family is the victim of an extortion plot by a former Department of Justice official.

Don Gaetz told Politico in an interview published Wednesday that he had been working with the FBI and had worn a wire on several occasions as part of an investigation.

Both Don and Matt Gaetz have accused former federal prosecutor David McGee of being behind the alleged plot. McGee, who is now a lawyer at Florida-based firm Beggs & Lane, told the Daily Beast in an interview on Tuesday that the claims were “completely, totally false.”

“The FBI asked me to try and get that information for Matt and an indication we would transfer money to Mr. David McGee,” Don Gaetz told Politico. He didn’t say what information he was intended to get for his son.

Don Gaetz also told Politico that he wore a wire during a meeting earlier this month with McGee, and was going to meet with Stephen Alford, who he also claimed was part of the effort.

The elder Gaetz said that he was trying to get Alford to discuss payments he was making to McGee, but the meeting fell apart when the Justice Department’s investigation into Matt Gaetz was reported in the press.

Alford didn’t respond to Politico’s request for comment.

The interview backs what Matt Gaetz told the press after The New York Times reported on Tuesday that he was under federal investigation for allegedly having a relationship with a 17-year-old girl.

Matt Gaetz said late Tuesday that a former Justice Department official was seeking to extort his family for $25 million, and that the leak to the Times was an effort to thwart that investigation. He first named McGee in an interview with Fox News’s Tucker Carlson.

The representative said his family is cooperating with the investigation into the extortion.

The Times reported that the Justice Department opened an investigation during the last months of Trump administration over whether he had an inappropriate relationship with a 17-year-old girl, and violated sex trafficking laws when he paid for her to travel with him.

The probe is reportedly part of a larger investigation into his ally Joel Greenberg, who has pleaded not guilty to charges of sex trafficking and paying at least one female minor for sex.

Gaetz, an ally of former President Trump who frequently has appeared on cable television to talk up the ex-president, has vehemently denied that he had a relationship with any 17-year-old girl.