Former congressman Matt Gaetz asserted Tuesday that allegations of prostitution and sexual relations with an underage girl were part of an Israeli operation to extort him because of his isolationist foreign policy.
During an interview on The Tucker Carlson Show, Gaetz denied that he had committed statutory rape, engaged in commercial sex, and used illicit drugs as alleged in a 2024 House Ethics Committee report, and that the supposed foreign influence operation was evidently fake due to not being given an opportunity to question witnesses and review records in a proper forum.
"It was an op to silence me, and Israel was involved, and I hate to say that," Gaetz told Carlson.
Gaetz related that his father had been approached by an Israeli consulate worker with images of him with underage prostitutes, seeking $25 million and aid in securing the rescue of a US spy in Iran. He claimed that the alleged extortionist had told Dilbert comic creator Scott Adams of the scheme. Ultimately, Gaetz said his family went to the FBI about the blackmail.
Fort Walton Beach resident Stephen Alford pleaded guilty to attempting to defraud Gaetz's father after having made false promises to secure a presidential pardon for Gaetz. Gaetz alleged that a second man, Real American Voice host and former Israeli consulate contractor Jake Novak, had also been involved in the plot.
"It was troubling and concerning to me that someone who was getting paid by the Israeli government was involved in a criminal shakedown of a US congressman," said Gaetz. "There was never really an effort to figure out what the government of Israel's involvement was in this matter. But you know that the government of Israel was involved because this was an Israeli government official who was involved in this."
Novak denied having attempted to extort Gaetz in a social media video on Tuesday, saying that he had never met Alford and was not connected to his crimes. Novak said that a friend of his contacted Gaetz's father for help saving the Iranian spy concurrently with Alford. Novak clarified that he had contacted Adams while he was working as a new media advisor for the consulate to discuss the allegations against Gaetz.
I have never extorted anyone, and I have never had any contact with either him or his father," said Novak.
‘Anti-Zionism is not antisemitism’
Gaetz said that he had been the target of a supposed Israeli operation because he had taken a more isolationist foreign policy.
With "Israel influence operation, it's always fire and ice. It's always outreach followed by consequence and then outreach and then consequence," said Gaetz, noting he had been contacted by someone offering to pay him to come to Israel and speak.
Gaetz shared with Carlson that he still considered himself pro-Israel, but believed "what the Netanyahu government is doing to Israel is bad for Israel. Much in the way the United States created more terrorists than we killed during the wars in the Middle East that have consumed most of my life." Israel was currently engaging in adventurism and expansionism, according to Gaetz.
The former congressman rejected the conflation of anti-Zionism with antisemitism, explaining, "I think that you can be critical of foreign policy choices that a country makes without the assumption that you hate the religion or the ethnic group associated with it."
The definition of antisemitism had "migrated" to mean those who didn't like Jews to now mean those whom Jews didn't like, Gaetz asserts, "and that's not a standard that we can live with because...antisemitism is terrible."
Gaetz and Carlson turned their criticism to the newly approved Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism, Rabbi Yehuda Kaploun, claiming that clips of the State Department representative speaking at The Jerusalem Post Washington Conference revealed parochial interests. Kaploun had said in the clip that it was a game-changer to get off the plan in Indonesia as a representative of the president, making sure that Gazan textbooks did not contain incitement, and how to combat antisemitism online.
“Nothing will convince Indonesia to come our way like sending Rabbi Yehuda,” Gaetz remarked sarcastically, though he did acknowledge that there was pedagogical incitement in Gazan textbooks.
Gaetz said that Kaploun would likely classify Carlson and him as antisemitic because they had been critical of the Israeli government.
Carlson said that there was a rise in antisemitism in the US, but it could be fixed "in a week" by getting groups like the ADL and Kaploun's department to denounce anti-white hate. He contended that if the ADL did so, he would donate to the organization, explaining that universalized principles couldn't be ignored.
Gaetz explained that Jewish groups weren't taking the approach because "when you're a witch hunter, you have to first convince people of the existence of witches."
In 2021, the New York Times reported that Gaetz was under investigation by the DOJ for possible violation of sex trafficking laws. While the DOJ in 2023 declined to bring charges against Gaetz, his associate and former Seminole County Tax Collector Joel Micah Greenberg in 2021 pled guilty to sex trafficking of a child, illegally producing a false identification document, aggravated identity theft, wire fraud, stalking, and conspiracy.
The House Ethics Committee came to the conclusion in 2024 that there was substantial evidence that Gaetz had engaged in prostitution, statutory rape, and illicit drug use.