Accused Sex Trafficker Has Pleasant Little Wedding

Rep. Matt Gaetz, an accused sex trafficker, seems to have enjoyed a pleasant little wedding over the weekend.

According to Vanity Fair, the Florida congressman eloped with his fiancée Ginger Luckey (her real name) to California, where they got married on Saturday. Vanity Fair describes the wedding as a relatively low-key affair: It was a “quiet ceremony” on Catalina Island, officiated by a Rand Paul aide, and attended by about 30 guests, including Gaetz’s alleged “son” Nestor. Gaetz catered the reception dinner himself, whose menu consisted of BBQ fare—chicken legs, grilled vegetables, and a watermelon salad, the outlet reports.

This is an awfully precious way to discuss the wedding of man under federal investigation for an alleged relationship with a 17-year-old girl as well as possible obstruction of justice. Vanity Fair says Gaetz is attempting to “shift the narrative with a MAGA romance,” but if you ask me, the magazine seems to have lent him far too much of a helping hand with this endeavor. Let us shift the narrative back again then, shall we?

Gaetz became part of the Department of Justice’s probe into Florida official Joel Greenberg in the final months of the Trump administration, when the investigation uncovered evidence that Greenberg connected Gaetz with young women he met on a sugar dating site. In April, the Daily Beast confirmed the existence of multiple Venmo transactions that seemed to show Gaetz paying Greenberg for teens to have sex with. (Gaetz has of course denied these allegations.)

In June, the DOJ began looking into whether Gaetz obstructed justice when he called a witness who was part of the department’s investigation into Greenberg, with the apparent intention of interfering with the probe. Gaetz’s chances of skirting these criminal charges are looking slim, if only because Greenberg has agreed to be a cooperating witness in exchange for a plea deal. Though Gaetz wasn’t named in the deal, ABC News reports that Greenberg has been providing federal investigators with “years of Venmo and Cash App transactions and thousands of photos and videos, as well as access to personal social media accounts.”

Perhaps Gaetz’s quaint wedding ceremony was one of his last hurrahs. It must be a great reassurance that, as his now wife, Luckey can’t testify against him.