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Rep. Matt Gaetz is not real.
Oh, sure, he technically exists. He’s not Sasquatch, despite the strong resemblance. But literally everything he says is performance art. It has nothing to do with reality, much less his actual job governing.
To wit, Gaetz sat down this week with Charlie Kirk, Boy Blunder, and laid out his plan to “immunize” Donald Trump from Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigations.
“If Congress does not assert its equities in this Jack Smith matter, those equities will dissolve,” he intoned, with all the seriousness of a 12-year-old dungeon master trying to rein in the rules lawyer who just rolled a natural 20.
Gaetz decried the “loser mentality” of his Republican colleagues loath to interfere in an ongoing criminal case:
Just tell Jack Smith he has to show up and give a transcribed interview to the House Judiciary Committee in the next 15 days. If he doesn’t do that, we should issue a subpoena. If he doesn’t show up, we should hold him in criminal contempt of Congress and force him to be the first prosecutor to bring a case while under criminal contempt himself. And if Merrick Garland won’t enforce that criminal contempt, then he subjects himself to an impeachment of the House.
Note that Republicans took control of the House on January 3, and on each and every one of the 192 days since then have promised to bring impeachment proceedings against some member of the Biden administration. Safe bet AG Garland isn’t exactly quaking in his wingtips.
But wait, there’s more!
Simultaneous to that, you could actually bring President Trump in to give testimony to the Congress, and in doing so immunize him. Now there’s different forms of immunity that take place at the committee level, subcommittee level, in some instances for full immunity, you have to have more of a supermajority vote. But if you have supermajority vote of a committee, like, Speaker McCarthy could set up a select committee tomorrow that could bring Trump in and immunize him, and then we could proceed with the very legitimate investigative work that we’re doing of the Bidens and the corrupt DOJ.
It was at this point a shade of skepticism crossed Charlie Kirk’s face — but only briefly, ‘cause, there isn’t a lot of real estate there to traverse.
Asked for examples of this immunity maneuver, the congressman demurred, waving his hands generally in the direction of 18 U.S. Code § 6002 and § 6005.
“If President Trump came in and said ‘I’m here to give you testimony about the witch hunt, about the abuse of criminal process which Congress has legitimate oversight equities to resolve,’ and if he were to say things to us, we could immunize him for that conduct that he were to discuss.”
Ummm … NO.
One of the very first posts I wrote for this here mommyblog discussed the difference between use immunity and transactional immunity in the context of Mike Flynn, before that sumbitch Bill Barr boned his prosecution. Gaetz and his merry band of dipshits can immunize Trump for anything that he says under oath, but they can’t immunize him for the underlying conduct. They might could be able to throw a wrench in the works of the prosecution by forcing the government’s witnesses to pinky swear that they hadn’t seen or been influenced by his congressional testimony. But they can’t just disappear the charges by letting Trump run his mouth about them.
No, not even if they shout, “Trump, the ultimate whistleblower.” Although Matty G did give that one the old college try, too, before admitting that his genius plan is not without risk.
“If you say something that’s inaccurate, it could bring a cascade of follow-on charge,” he conceded, in tacit acknowledgment that Donald Trump cannot string together ten true words and would risk prosecution for lying to Congress if he was dumb enough to show up. Also, he tends to do weird shit under oath, like volunteer that he doesn’t want to have sex with the attorney deposing him. Which is why there is no attorney on God’s green earth who is going to put him anywhere near a witness stand, even with goons like Gaetz asking the questions.
In short, it’s ridiculous performance art, the kind which Gaetz has plenty of time for because he’s really not much for governing. He’s not really a congressman, he just plays one on TV. But in today’s GOP, that’s more than enough.
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