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Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., has made a career out of pushing conspiracy theories favorable to Donald Trump.
He’s claimed, without evidence, that the FBI has engaged in an anti-Trump crusade, and he’s supported Trump’s baseless claims that voting fraud cost him the 2020 election.
And now Gaetz is facing the conspiratorial fury of the MAGA monster he helped create in the conservative movement. Ahead of his GOP primary race next week, opponent Mark Lombardo's campaign released an ad that makes a provocative-yet-unproven claim about Gaetz’s relationship with Trump.
The ad questions Trump’s support for Gaetz (whom Trump has endorsed) by suggesting the former president may believe Gaetz was the secret informant who helped the FBI get a warrant to search Mar-a-Lago earlier this month.
“When Donald Trump really endorses someone, he goes big," a narrator in the ad states. "You’ve seen none of that for lying Matt Gaetz. What does Trump know? Is Gaetz the informant?”
There’s been no evidence to support that allegation. But, like Gaetz, Lombardo isn’t letting facts impede his political talking points. The ad goes on to suggest it is nefarious that Gaetz’s campaign hired an attorney who represented convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein to defend Gaetz against a sex trafficking allegation. And questions whether Gaetz is seeking retribution for Trump allegedly refusing to issue a blanket pardon to him before leaving the White House. (Gaetz has denied the sex trafficking allegation.)
Ordinarily, I’d decline to share an ad so conspiratorial. But it’s worth noting Gaetz, like his fellow Trumpophiles in Congress, is no stranger to pro-Trump conspiracy theories. He’s just learning what it’s like to be cast as a villain in one of them.
Check out the ad below: