Report: Matt Gaetz investigation now involves a missing FBI agent last seen 14 years ago
Annaliese Levy
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New details have emerged surrounding Rep. Matt Gaetz’s alleged extortion scheme that connects the investigation to an FBI agent that went missing in Iran 14 years ago.
The New York Times reported Tuesday that the Department of Justice was investigating whether Gaetz “had a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old and paid for her to travel with him.”
Gaetz has denied the allegations but said he is a victim of a purported scheme that was organized by lawyer David McGee.
According to documents released by The Washington Post, Gaetz’s father, Don Gaetz, was approached by two men who offered to help his son if he gave them a large sum of money to help locate Robert A. Levinson, an American hostage in Iran who disappeared in 2007.
Bob Kent, a former Air Force intelligence analyst, told Don Gaetz that he had a plan that could make Gaetz’s “future legal and political problems go away,” and claimed that Levinson was still alive.
Gaetz’s father was instructed to deposit $25 million in a trust account of law firm Beggs & Land, bearing the name of Levinson family attorney and former federal prosecutor David McGee.
Don Gaetz was suspicious of the proposal. Fearing his family was being extorted, he contacted the FBI.
Gaetz told Fox News host Tucker Carlson that his father was instructed by the FBI and the DOJ to wear a wire.
Gaetz said if the audio recordings were released it would prove his innocence and show the allegations against him were “merely intended to try to bleed my family out of money.”
McGee told the Post that Matt Gaetz’s allegations of extortion are “completely false.”
“It’s a blatant attempt to distract from the fact that he’s under investigation for sex trafficking of minors. I have no connection with that case at all, other than, one of a thousand people who have heard the rumors,” McGee said.
Follow Annaliese Levy on Twitter @AnnalieseLevy
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