I'm confident Qanon is on top of this due to their advocacy against child sex trafficking and pedophilia.
Gaetz is not Trump and nobody really can get to Trumps level of bulletproof. Plus it seems nobody really likes Gaetz among his peers. They can probably get that seat back easily.
Gaetz isn't Trump but he's still one of Trump's most loyal supporters in the House and one of the most visible. As we saw with Majorie Taylor Greene who is a Freshman Rep with less than 4 months in office that Republicans refused to hold her accountable and portrayed her as the victim of the Leftists and the Democrat majority. Also there are several Republican members of Congress with all sorts of legal problems that are still there such as Devin Nunes and Jim Jordan. The current GOP views these things as zero sum game and if they do anything regarding their own that is a win for Democrats. That is why Trump and others have referred to Congressional Republicans as "Surrender Caucus" and encouraged them to not give in on anything.
Did you just forget what happened to Pence and other people who were loyal to Trump? Have you seen anybody in the Trump camp defending him. Have you seen Trump defending him? Greene has far more grass root cred than Gaetz does. did you see how Tucker gave him the stiff arm.
Pence ultimately crossed Trump by not doing anything to stop the certification, he couldn't but clearly Trump and his supporters didn't see it that way. Pence's crime to Trump and supporters wasn't that he was acting illegally or unethically but that he wasn't sufficiently loyal to Trump. Gaetz hasn't wavered in his loyalty to Trump in word or deed. Trump hasn't defended Gaetz but I'm not aware of him saying anything bad about Gaetz. McCarthy has said some wishy washy stuff but I don't see any serious movement within the House GOP caucus to remove Gaetz either from the house or even the Judiciary Committee.
It's way too early to have any movement to remove Gaetz for anything he has not been charged with anything, I have no idea why that is in the equation at this point.
I’m not clear then why you are discussing that the GOP might do anything about him or that his seat can easily be replaced It is not near the end but it’s also not that early. Given the severity of the accusation, that sex trafficking is an issue that the GOP claims to care a lot about, and that an investigation was started by the prior administration would expect to see some more talk of Gaetz in the caucus. My opinion is it might take an actual indictment to get the GOP to kick him off the Judiciary committee and actual conviction before they would agree to kick him out of Congress
I was talking about once this gets rolling and charges are actually brought if they will be. Currently people are just tracking the dots and the FBI has not even said they are investigating him so why would he be taken from committees at this point. My point is I don't think you will see full throated support like you did with Greene and I bet a hell of a lot of leaks start poring out once the investigation or charges are known. I don't think we are far off in this and Greene really has no bearing on this IMO.
You gotta be careful, it can be a slippery slope. No pun intended although that’s funny when I think about it. My best friend got into the swinger scene, a girl he met there and moved in with ended up killing him for insurance money. It’s a sordid black widow tale that belongs on Lifetime. Would take a pretty solid and mature relationship to not get ended badly by the emotional ramifications. Hats off to my boy @Nook for keeping it together.