Matt Gaetz’s wild war with Israel... Sri Lankan leftists surge to victory...

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If you want a sense of how dramatically the Republican Party has transformed in our lifetimes, you can’t do much better than compare the attorney general nominees between George W. Bush and Donald Trump. Bush tapped former senator John Ashcroft, an evangelical warrior so devout that he famously demanded the Justice Department drape a curtain over the naked bosom of a “Spirit of Justice” statue in the agency’s foyer. While he demanded his eyes be blinded from such sin, he was much more eager to peer into the personal lives of the American people. Ashcroft oversaw the enactment and implementation of the PATRIOT Act, stretching its unconstitutional spying powers well beyond their breaking point. 

Gaetz, to put it mildly, is unlikely to bring the curtain back. He has drawn the enmity of many of his colleagues by boasting about his sexual exploits on the House floor, supplementing them with risque videos and tales of Red Bull and ED-drug cocktails (at least according to Sen. Markwayne Mullin). His yet-to-be-leaked ethics investigation focuses on whether a young woman he slept with was 17 or 18 at the time, and whether payments he made were for sex or, as he says, simply generosity. (Find ka.burbank77 on Signal if you have relevant info.) His friend, caught up in the same scandal, sits in prison for sex trafficking. 

On the flip side, Gaetz has pushed hard to undo Ashcroft’s signature achievement. “The blatant misuse of warrantless surveillance powers targeting Americans’ communications should not be accepted or reauthorized,” he declared last year in one of his many attempts to roll back those spying powers. We’ve never had an attorney general like Matt Gaetz, that’s for sure. 

If it wasn’t all bizarre enough, Gaetz, in the midst of the sex-trafficking scandal, also tangled with the ambassador of Israel over allegations of an extortion attempt against him and his father. If you weren’t reading conservative media at the time, you might have missed it. The extortion attempt was related to his sex-trafficking investigation, but, of course, one can be both extorted and guilty. The investigation has been dropped by the DOJ. My colleague Murtaza Hussain and I dug back through the extraordinary tale and pieced it together below. Marc Caputo also wrote a good version back in 2021. It’s one of those stories that will keep you scrolling, and leave you disoriented at the end, wondering, “What on earth did I just read?” 

Let’s throw in some good news for once: In September, the left-leaning Anura Kumara Dissanayake stunned Sri Lanka by winning the presidential election, the first time the corrupt families in control of the country since independence had been successfully challenged. But he had effectively no power in parliament (just three seats) so dissolved the chamber and called new elections, which were held yesterday. Here’s how Reuters described it: “Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s leftist coalition won a thumping victory in a snap general election, gaining power to push through his plans to fight poverty and graft in the island nation recovering from a financial meltdown. The sweeping mandate, which included surprise backing from the north and east of the country which is home to the minority Tamil people, is an unprecedented vote for change and indicates that Sri Lanka is in sync on moving ahead, analysts said.”

The Sri Lanka victory comes 15 years after the crushing of the so-called Tamil Tigers by the Sri Lankan government. In 2009, at the end of a civil war, the government massacred some 40,000 or more Tamil civilians in a genocidal finish — and upwards of 170,000 total. The broad lack of accountability for the perpetrators of the massacre resonates today – and certainly did not go unnoticed by would-be perpetrators elsewhere around the world. Mass slaughter as a political solution to contemporary disputes was given a boost by that massacre and the world’s acquiescence. 

Dissanayake won the Tamil region with a promise to end the ongoing occupation and release political prisoners, but it’ll be a fraught relationship worth watching closely.

Dissanayake’s next fight will be with the International Monetary Fund, which put shackles on the country’s government and economy in exchange for a bailout. 

We’ll keep an eye on Sri Lanka for the gathering Western reaction to this demand for dignity and independence. It’s likely to get rocky, but keeping eyes on it will help. If you can help by upgrading to a paid subscription, now would be a great time to do it. 

On Wednesday on Counter Points, we interviewed Gaza journalist and Drop Site contributor Abubaker Abed. It’s worth watching and sharing if you get a moment.

—Ryan Grim

Matt Gaetz arrives with Donald Trump's motorcade at the Hyatt Regency Capitol Hill on November 13, 2024 in Washington, DC. Photo: Kent Nishimura/Getty Images

Matt Gaetz’s War With Israel

President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to become attorney general believes that an agent of the Israeli government was involved in an extortion attempt connected to his high-profile sex-trafficking investigation. 

The most surprising part: There’s serious evidence that Matt Gaetz may be correct. The open question, though, is whether the agent was acting on behalf of the government of Israel itself.

The details of the case feel ripped from a Coen Brothers film, except that it now involves a man on the cusp of becoming the nation’s top federal law enforcement official. 

Former Congressman Gaetz spent years fighting a sex trafficking investigation against him led by the Department of Justice, as well as a probe by the House Ethics Committee over his personal conduct. Gaetz has denied wrongdoing, and the Department of Justice eventually dropped its investigation. The fate of the congressional probe, which began with serious accusations of sex trafficking a 17-year-old, has been thrown into doubt by his resignation from Congress after being nominated to the AG role. 

In the fall of 2021, the U.S. government indicted a Florida developer named Stephen Alford for a $25 million extortion scheme targeting Gaetz’s father, Don Gaetz, while his son was under investigation on those sex trafficking charges.The stated goal was to pressure Don Gaetz to fund a mission to free an American man named Robert Levinson, who had been imprisoned in Iran while allegedly on a mission for the CIA. In exchange, the Air Force officer promised Don Gaetz that payment of the money would result in “a plan that can make [Gaetz’s] future legal and political problems go away.” The case also involved a former Department of Justice prosecutor and U.S. Air Force intelligence officer in a scheme dubbed “Project Homecoming.

Evidence of the extortion scheme is considerable, laid out in reports in the Washington Examiner, American Conservative, The Spectator, and other conservative outlets, as well as in a federal indictment. ” The day after the initial contact in mid-March 2021, Don Gaetz then says he met with the officer, who made the terms explicit in a letter: “In exchange for the funds being arranged, and upon the release of Mr. Levinson, the team that delivers Mr. Levinson to the President of The United States shall strongly advocate that President Biden issue a Presidential Pardon, or instruct the Department of Justice to terminate any and all investigations involving Congressman Gaetz.”

Bizarrely, the plot held little chance of success, unless the plotters knew something the American government did not: In 2020, Levinson’s family and the U.S. collectively issued a statement affirming that they believed Levinson was dead. Nevertheless, the extorters persisted. Alford, in the letter, said that Levinson’s release had been brokered “by certain United States and Mexican individuals” and that the cost was $25 million. Gaetz’s payment would be an interest-free loan. Upon returning Levinson to the United States, the plotters would score a $25 million reward and pay Gaetz back, according to the plan.

Gaetz immediately used the extortion attempt to counterbalance the stories coming out about his possible involvement in prostitution and trafficking. 

The story got even more complicated: The American Conservative reported that, days before the sex trafficking allegations against Gaetz went public, Jake Novak, then media director for Israel’s Consulate General in New York, sent text messages to conservative commentator and Dilbert creator Scott Adams on the topic of Gaetz’s extortion. In the messages, Novak not only brags about having advance knowledge of the investigation into Gaetz, but directly claims that he was involved in the caper.

In the text messages, Novak tells a disbelieving Adams that Gaetz was the subject of a serious criminal investigation. “Scoop I can’t report: Rep. Gaetz is the subject of a sex with minors, and possibly murder conspiracy. I trust the source. Charges/accusations apparently ‘very credible,’” Novak wrote to Adams.

Novak also stated in the exchange that he was working to extract money from Gaetz's father, adding that a “commando team” was awaiting wire transfers of money to be able to continue with the operation. The conversation continued after the story broke, with Novak referencing a story in the Washington Examiner purporting to reveal the details of Project Homecoming.

“The real documents do not extort,” Novak told Adams, “We only asked for $25 million as an estimate at first. We came way down.” Novak is not named in the indictment of Alford, though Novak’s text messages claim intimate involvement. “I’ve got a commando team leader friend of mine nervously waiting for wire transfers to clear,” Novak told Adams.  

Gaetz later released a lengthy video commenting on the alleged scheme and text messages between Novak and Adams, while emphasizing his own history of personal loyalty to the government of Israel. In the video, Gaetz strongly suggests that he was the subject of an extortion attempt by the officials of the Israeli government.

“You don’t have to read between the lines here: Jake Novak was involved in the planning of Project Homecoming. He was apprised in real time as the criminal overture to my father occurred. He was even involved in the pricing of the extortion amount,” Gaetz said in the video, released on the social media platform Rumble. 

“‘We came way down’?” Gaetz continued, in reference to Novak’s message to Adams about the negotiated price for the plot. “Jake Novak was not a spectator to Project Homecoming. Jake Novak is a media relations professional. Every media outlet in America should be asking him this question: Who the hell is ‘we’? ‘We’ asked for $25 million as an estimate at first. ‘We’ came way down. Is ‘we’ the government of Israel?” 

Adams told Drop Site, “I have no comment and no new knowledge on the topic.”

Gaetz subsequently issued a public letter to Israel’s ambassador to the U.S., Gilad Erdan asking for a meeting to discuss the affair. “I come as a friend to Israel. Supporting the US-Israel relationship is very important to me and to my constituents. Jake Novak is the Broadcast Media Relations Director at Israel’s Consulate in New York. It has come to my attention that he has exchanged a series of messages with American political commentator Scott Adams regarding me and my family,” Gaetz wrote. “I request an in-person meeting with you to discuss this matter at your earliest convenience.”

Charles Johnson, a conservative provocateur, friend of Gaetz’s, and outspoken foe of Israel, told Drop Site the meeting with the ambassador did happen. “There has been a series of concerted efforts to blackmail Matt Gaetz by criminals tied to the IDF in the U.S.,” Johnson claimed.

Gaetz did not reply to a request for comment, but has since said on Twitter, “Lies were Weaponized to try to destroy me. These lies resulted in prosecution, conviction, and prison. For the liars, not me. I focused on the truth and doing my job.”

At the time of the allegations in 2021, a statement Gaetz’s spokesperson provided to The Spectator suggests Gaetz believed the plot ran deep –an inkling he may soon have the power of the DOJ to pursue. “Alford wasn’t acting alone, and former DoJ official David McGee as well as State Department contractor Bob Kent must now also face justice,” said Gaetz spokesperson Harlan Hill, to The Spectator. “The release of the Alford tapes will further exculpate Rep. Gaetz and implicate those with long-standing links to the federal government.”

ABC News reported Thursday that the woman testified to the Ethics Committee that Gaetz had sex with her while she was still 17. The Israeli government distanced itself from Novak’s actions, stating that, “the Consulate General of Israel in New York and the State of Israel are not involved in any way, directly or indirectly in this issue,” before acknowledging that Novak worked at the consulate and adding, “it was made clear to Mr. Novak that this is not acceptable by the Consulate General and he must never be involved in such matters again.” 

Novak is now the spokesperson for Betar US, a Zionist organization inspired by the violent extremist Ze'ev Jabotinsky. A message to Betar for Novak went unreturned. 

For his role in the plot to extort Gaetz’s father, Alford would be sentenced to 5 years in prison in 2022.