How the Gaetz Scandal Continues to Harm Women
How Powerful Male Editors Paralyzed Politics’ #MeToo Revolution
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If there were more female and diverse voices on editorial boards in media the real Matt Gates scandal could have changed history. News cycles have been obsessed with the Matt Gaetz sex scandal involving the Florida Congressional rep’s purported interstate trafficking of an underage woman. But it is really a straw-man to distract from resolving a far more concealed and harmful problem: the sexual extortion of women in politics.
The Gaetz Scandal is an Affront to Women and We Should Be Outraged
The real Gaetz scandal began in late 2017 when he exposed a wide-spread, sex-for-votes scheme in Florida state politics. I know this because I ran for office against Gaetz’s rivals as it happened. But his rivals are so powerful and well-connected in the southern press that the real scandal, which could have ended the widespread and condoned sexual exploitation of women in politics, has been gutted and buried.
The current Gaetz scandal is an affront to women and we should be outraged. It could be drawing attention to the need to take action against sex trafficking and sexual extortion in politics. Instead, male political leaders and their enablers in journalism turned what started as an issue about wide-spread sexual extortion in Florida politics into a tabloid-style, locker-room, bragging game.
And we fell for it.
The Real Gaetz Scandal: Florida’s Harvey Weinstein
The real Gaetz scandal started at the end of 2017 when Matt Gaetz — himself — outed Florida’s Harvey Weinstein. This wasn’t necessarily an act of chivalry or feminist allyship on Gaetz’s part. It was just politics.
Florida’s Harvey Weinstein wanted to be governor and Gatez was in his rival’s camp (House Speaker, Richard Corcoran).
So Gaetz acted as Corcoran’s hired gun.
Gaetz had witnessed Jack Latvala (aka Harvey) cornering a woman at a political gathering so that he could sexually assault her. Latvala was alleged to have similarly done so with at least five women. So, at the height of the #MeToo Movement, Gaetz weaponized what he saw, outed Latvala and knocked him out of the Florida governor’s race, in one-fell-swoop.
Gaetz possibly also drew first to save himself from his current scandal.
When Gaetz outed Latvala, it kicked off a three-year-long, political war between Matt Gaetz and Jack Latvala regarding which man is Florida’s greatest sexual predator. This war is now inter-generational.
The fact that the Tampa Bay Times and other outlets has been able to reduce a pervasive, sexual extortion crisis to a tabloid-style, sex spectacle devoid of any feminist critique, is absolutely unconscionable.
Killing Politics’ #MeToo Reckoning
The story that should have brought the hell fires of America’s Political #MeToo Reckoning was snuffed out by political editors before it could touch a single ember.
I got caught in the center of this war when I ran for office against the Latvala clan in 2018. I personally saw this scandal unfold and understood its implications for women.
I was prepared to take my political opponent to task on this scandal. So the largest newspaper in Florida declared me its enemy.
As a result, my campaign was brutally assaulted by a powerful and rogue political editor who is close friends with Latvala. Latvala and this editor are widely-feared for their vengeance in Florida, so much that my political rival almost ran unopposed.
When Latvala’s accusers came forward in 2017 they were so afraid of retribution that they did so anonymously because they knew Latvala had the power to ruin their lives. They were aware of a counter-offensive Latvala had planned to destroy them.
Latvala’s editor friend, Adam C. Smith, was hell-bent on protecting Latvala’s political and financial legacy.
This assault and subsequent cover-up was so aggressive that my campaign treasurer died of a heart-attack and other more honest journalists may have lost their careers.
I’m risking my life to out the story you are reading right now because I know it can bring about a sea-change for women in leadership. So I am starting a defense fund.
There should be a federal investigation into public corruption and the Latvala cover-up but instead we are all myopically focused on Gaetz.
How did this happen?
It is likely we are only hearing about Gaetz because of public corruption and dark money. The largest Koch and Pulitzer-backed newspaper in the American southeast has a close relationship with the Latvala tribe and it wildly abused its power to protect him.
Gaetz is their smoke screen. Their straw man.
Sex-for-Votes: Gaetz’s Current Scandal is Really About Vengeance
The real scandal America should know about right now is Florida’s sex-for-votes scheme. Every politico in Florida knows this and they are terrified of coming forward.
The Gaetz scandal is a smoke screen meant to avoid discussing, addressing and eradicating a widespread sex-for-votes scheme that sexually extorts women in Florida politics still today.
And we shouldn’t fall for it.
When Gaetz outed Latvala in POLITICO in 2017, both Gaetz and Latvala’s six female accusers made it clear in the article that Latvala was powerful and vengeful and was already planning a counteroffensive:
“One of the women who accused Latvala of inappropriately touching her said that, “as long as Latvala is allowed to use his power as appropriations chair to continue to harass and demean women, we can never come forward and tell our stories in the light. Latvala will do everything in his power to block the truth. He made that clear when he released research on Congressman Gaetz for telling the truth on record. Women heard him — tell the truth on record and there will be payback.”
Said Gaetz: “Jack is sending the message to accusers that they better be ready to defend every speeding ticket and every social media post. Predators think they can obtain the outcomes they desire through intimidation. Jack always has.”
The public deserves to know why the current Gaetz scandal is not being covered as a story of Latvala’s revenge when those who outed him in 2017 made it clear this would happen.
I Know Sexual Extortion is Real Because it Happened to Me and I’ve Spoken to Federal Investigators
When I refused three different offers to spend “time alone” with my campaign’s most powerful financial backer, he weaponized his own connection to the Tampa Bay Times and let the paper destroy me. He was in regular contact with the Times journalist covering my race.
There should be a federal investigation into whether this newspaper’s editor conspired with gatekeepers to defraud, extort, smear and silence political leaders like me.
To punish me for my “non-compliance,” this gatekeeper withdrew his support from my campaign’s largest fundraiser just days before the event and sent the Times journalist to go after me and my backers at the beginning of the most important fundraising day of my campaign with false claims that I had embezzled my own campaign funds. These claims were absolutely baseless and malicious. I have evidence that the cover-up of this newspaper’s malicious smear campaign against me goes all the way up to the Florida Attorney General’s Office.
Once he weaponized the press against me, this major funder then had his political allies pull their endorsements and publicly oppose me in the Tampa Bay Times. The Times editors knew this, the journalist knew this. The editor who ordered this hit resigned shortly after the truth about my experience came to light.
Months before this happened this major funder encouraged me to buy my protection from the Tampa Bay Times by taking out ads in the newspaper. My campaign hit may have happened because I refused.
When the truth came to light, a massive cover-up ensued and people lost their careers. A 2020 Pulitzer nomination may have been given to Mark Puente, the journalist Adam C. Smith ordered to smear me, in order to buy his silence.
The sexual extortion of female leaders in Tampa Bay politics is so pervasive that it may be one reason why LGBTQ women in the region statistically appear to have a rare political advantage there. They may appear less sexually available and exploitable to male political gatekeepers. This immunity might explain why “out” LGBTQ leaders are statistically over-represented in regional political office in Tampa Bay today.
The needs of female leaders, who appear to be more available prey for powerful, Florida men are not being taken seriously. We are being sexually extorted and legitimately harmed. Whether candidates are LGBTQ, leaders of color or CIS women, the exploitation of one under-represented demographic in politics affects all of us and we need to stand up to predatory injustice of all kinds.
Sex-for-votes is political rape. And it must end.
A High-Level, Press Cover-Up
The evidence my campaign has demonstrates this powerful editor, Adam C. Smith, threw out the rule book to protect Latvala and buried a scandal that could have led to a sea-change for women in politics. I fought back and outed what Smith did and he no longer has a job with the Tampa Bay Times. But neither the Tampa Bay Times, nor the Poynter Institute that owns them, nor the Koch foundation that backs them, has taken responsibility for the harm they may have caused.
Their current silence on this matter has been deafening.
These behemoth political influencers need admit what they did. For three years they have been covering it up. They need to stop defending sexual predators and end Florida’s Wall-of-Silence that compels women in politics to be sexually extorted. But these powerful political institutions are so untouchable it is likely they will not be held accountable.
The Tampa Bay Times defended Latvala against sex-predator allegations so fervently that it ruined careers; I’m just one of the people it harmed.
It’s Time for Florida’s Pulitzer-Backed Newspaper to Right its Wrongs Against Women.
Gaetz is currently enduring political payback and women’s concerns are being ignored, yet again. This is the real sex-scandal we should be talking about.
But women don’t run editorial boards, so we aren’t.
If women had more power in media, we would use stories like this to put an end to sexual extortion in politics.
But that would take all the fun out leadership for these men.
Florida women often cannot make any progress in politics unless they submit to sexual extortion and trade sex for the political support of their powerful male colleagues.
Countless women have been harmed by this well-known sex-for-votes scheme. Florida’s less popular reporters have documented this sex-for-votes culture for decades. It is considered an open-secret in up-ticket politics. Countless women are terrified of coming forward.
Powerful men have everything to lose if they do.
It’s time for women to speak up and tear down this Wall of Silence. It is time for politics to have a #MeToo Reckoning.
