David McGee (Credit: public domain)
The father of Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz says that he wore a wire while working with the FBI in an attempt to uncover a purported $25 million extortion plot against his son, related to reported sex-trafficking allegations against the lawmaker.
Don Gaetz, himself a former Florida state senator, backed up his son’s counter-allegation of blackmail in an interview with Politico late Tuesday.
“The FBI asked me to try and get that information for Matt and an indication we would transfer money to Mr. David McGee,” the elder Gaetz told Politico, referring to a former Department of Justice official who Rep. Gaetz claims tried to extort him.
Both Rep. Gaetz and McGee, a former federal prosecutor now in private practice in Florida, have strongly denied any wrongdoing.
The dueling allegations began to fly Tuesday, when The New York Times reported that the younger Gaetz, 38, was under investigation by the DOJ for allegedly paying a 17-year-old girl with whom he had a sexual relationship to travel with him across state lines.
Gaetz, a Republican, told The Post that he denied the allegations “in the strongest possible terms” — then, during an appearance on Fox News, accused McGee by name of attempting to extort $25 million from his family to make the sex-trafficking accusations go away.
Gaetz went on to tell Fox that he and his father were working with the FBI on a separate investigation into the purported blackmail, that entailed his dad wearing a wire in an attempt to gather evidence against McGee.
Stephen Alford mugshot (Credit: public domain)
(…)Don Gaetz went on to tell Politico that he was prepared to wear a wire a second time during a Wednesday meeting with Stephen Alford, a Florida developer who he claimed was also part of the alleged extortion scheme.
Gaetz said that that meeting fell apart when news broke of the sex-trafficking probe.
Alford did not respond to Politico’s attempts to reach him for comment.
McGee told The Washington Post on Wednesday that the allegations Rep. Gaetz lodged against him are “completely false,” characterizing them as “a blatant attempt to distract from the fact that he’s under investigation for sex trafficking of minors.”
The DOJ and FBI have not publicly commented on the existence of either investigation. (Read more: New York Post, 3/31, 2021) (Archive)
August 31, 2021 –
Stephen Alford, a prominent Fort Walton Beach businessman with a checkered legal history, has been indicted on federal charges stemming from alleged efforts to extort $25 million.
A press release announcing the indictment, which doesn’t name the victim, states Alford offered “to obtain a presidential pardon for a family member” of his victim.
Both former state Sen. Don Gaetz and his son, U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz, have claimed that Alford was among a group of people who tried to extort millions of dollars from their family.
According to a version of events provided first by Matt Gaetz, R-Fort Walton Beach, Pensacola attorney David McGee and others attempted to extort $25 million from the Gaetz family, and Don Gaetz, a Niceville resident, wore a wire to a meeting to discuss a $5.4 million down payment to allow federal agents to gather evidence about the conspiracy.
Don Gaetz on Tuesday afternoon referred comment to his attorney, Jeff Nieman, who was not available.
Bob Kent (Credit: CNN)
In an April interview, Alford, a twice-convicted felon, did not deny approaching the wealthy Gaetz family for money. He said he, McGee and others were attempting to work through the Gaetzes to rescue Robert Levinson, a CIA operative who disappeared in 2007 and is believed to have been kidnapped by agents of the government of Iran.
(…) Bob Kent, a former Air Force intelligence officer and an alleged Alford co-conspirator, spoke to CNN and said of Congressman Gaetz, “If the allegations are true, he’s in need of some goodwill from the government.”
“I’m in need of a sponsor to fund the rescue project,” Kent continued. “There is no threat. I don’t have anything to do with the (sexual allegations) indictment. I don’t have anything to do with the investigation into Matt Gaetz.” (Read more: NFW Daily News, 8/31/2023) (Archive)
David McGee was also involved In 2009 with FBI director Robert Mueller and the bureau asking Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska to spend millions of his own dollars funding an FBI-supervised operation to rescue a retired FBI agent, Robert Levinson, captured in Iran while working for the CIA in 2007.