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republican congressman matt gates faces a new potential legal earthquake and it's happening today we've been tracking it an associate that is tied to his legal investigations likely to plead guilty the trump loyalist facing a new sex allegation and this one is about a bahamas trip this is an addition to those separate allegations that have been reported that range from paying for sex to sex trafficking to sex with an underage girl now it's important to note gates denies all of that and at this point the doj is investigating but has not charged him with any crime now why is today a major turning point i'll show you it's our top story because this federal sex trafficking probe which gates himself confirms is going on he doesn't deny that it's going on and that he's a subject and that he's talked to folks it stems from an associate that was charged with sex trafficking and other crimes now today that gates associate former florida tax collector joel greenberg had a hearing to discuss a trial date but the hearing turned out to be fast six minutes actually in all and we'll explain why because under this spotlight greenberg is now expected according to reporting to plead guilty now to an array of federal charges which could include sex trafficking and sex with a minor and identity theft prosecutors and defense lawyers say that they expect a plea deal for gates associate joel greenberg a plea by the former elected official joel greenberg could significantly strengthen the justice department's hand as it investigates mr gates he's facing over 33 criminal counts so he has an incentive here to provide any evidence of any sort of criminal conduct you can see there all the reporting a big story all over the place with these indications hasn't happened yet that he would admit to some of these crimes and that raises a legal question that you may recall from any big case that can involve big or high-profile people it was a big issue in the mueller probe the question becomes will this person flip will they become a cooperating witness do they have knowledge of crimes by other important people will this person work with the feds in the doj is there exposure here for republican congressman matt gates and here is something that might haunt him here is greenberg's attorney after court today does matt gates have anything to worry about i'm sure matt gates is not feeling very comfortable today not feeling comfortable there are people who see that as an ominous sign for gates but again that's one lawyer representing one person putting out that message we're not yet reporting anything that confirms some kind of cooperation deal now if greenberg does cooperate if he does have evidence of interest to the feds whether that's about mr gates or other individuals he could like anyone else get a more lenient sentence he's looking at 12 years in prison now all this comes as a new report is breaking first from cbs news and nbc news has confirmed this that the feds are probing this separate international trip gates took down to the bahamas they believe it was in late 2018 or early 2019 and it's relevant to the probe because it involves quote women paid to travel for sex which could violate federal law and whether gates or greenberg who was in court today use the internet to search for women they could pay for sex according to sources nbc news there has confirmed with in addition the reporting says quote gates was on that trip with a marijuana entrepreneur who allegedly paid for the travel expenses accommodations and female experts and quote according to those sources again gates denying all of these allegations gates has not been charged with any crimes and we want to report for you because this is a live and ongoing issue a gate spokesperson speaking out new about this latest reporting and saying quote it looks like a general fishing exercise about vacations and consensual relationships with adults end quote joining us now on this top story riveting washington is dave arnberg state attorney for palm beach county mark caputo national political reporter from uh politico and also a florida politics guru many may remember him from a lot of our florida political coverage and liz plank msnbc columnist and author uh hello everyone let me start uh with you mark because this is quite a story i would say no shade but even for florida oh yeah it's it's a it's it's a tale of not just one florida man but at least two florida man and maybe many florida men i think you summed up the case pretty well the the problem that we're having on the media side of this is we're getting a lot of anonymous leaks and we're not getting a lot of details and uh gates is sort of he's not hiding from this and he's ratcheting up pressure he's going to be speaking tomorrow at a group at trump doral and it's going to be interesting to see if there really really is kind of a tip for tat between gates and the fed because there seems to be this ongoing dynamic where the elite comes out about him and then he speaks out about it and then another leak comes out so the question is what's he going to say tomorrow and then what new revelation is going to bring dave walk us through what happened in court today and what it means uh that there could be some sort of plea good evening ari today was not surprising at all because joel greenberg is facing child sex trafficking charges involving the same 17 year old girl at the heart of the matt gates investigation and if you add all the charges together that greenberg is facing he faces up to life in prison so he has every incentive to make a deal so his lawyer pretty much confirmed that's what's going on and the fact that matt gates is out there is a lifeline for joel greenberg because joel greenberg is just a local tax collector matt gates is a congressman and so he's clearly a bigger target and joel greenberg knows where all the bodies are buried here and if he's the first one in the process he'll get the best deal yep let me let me press you for a little bit of precision here because in fairness just following the facts you said quote pretty much confirmed um but can we read into that yet i mean what greenberg said could be read as confirmation i understand what you're drawing on to say that um but could he not also turn around in a few days and say well i was referring to why gates should be uncomfortable given all the allegations but our clients go in a different direction all right i cannot imagine that his lawyers are going to allow him to go to trial where he faces a 10-year mandatory minimum sentence for child sex trafficking i mean he's like a walking criminal enterprise this guy and the only thing he has going in his favor was that there's a bigger fish to flip on and so i i've always felt that it was inevitable that this day would come i think his lawyer though when you say the other guy should be uncomfortable right now that to me confirms that this whole deal is inevitable and imminent yeah yep and we value your your legal analysis here i want to be clear with viewers uh confirms it for you nbc news has not confirmed a cooperation deal yet and as i mentioned the mueller probe because it was just such a recent example um where there's gradations to whether people are just trying to get a deal to plea whether they cooperate and then separately whether they have criminal evidence on others we're not there yet in fairness to mr gates who hasn't been charged yet although boy are there a lot of allegations uh liz plank i i turn to you not for the law but for what appears to be another case of hypocrisy for a republican party um that has has boy as it campaigned and talked a lot about all kinds of traditional values what's going on here yeah uh speaking of feeling uncomfortable uh today uh this is the kind of story that you need to take a swig of pepto-bismol to be able to stomach and read through um some of the details today you know the fact that they may have shared a girlfriend um and my girlfriend it's a 17 year old child um is is is really really worrying and and pretty astounding and it's so you know matt gates is what happens when masculinity doesn't get an upgrade when uh you know in a well-functioning patriarchy women's bodies and girls bodies become the biggest form of currency and to me the biggest um sign of that is the fact that matt gates allegedly you know if all of this is true and with joel greenberg they didn't just do this they talked about it they boasted about these things about these uh alleged crimes to other men to many other men political is reporting that there are eight people who are uh you know were familiar with the story that they were sharing the 17 year old um girl uh so so that's very very concerning to me and it's very you know it shows sort of where the bar is for the republican party and that it is very very low there's been a slew of developments with republican congressman matt gates's pressure that he's facing in this federal probe to sex trafficking but one place where you wouldn't hear about it at all as a news viewer would actually be on fox news gates has not been on the network since the widely panned interview he did with tucker carlson that fox called so weird and by one count the gates investigation has been mentioned on fox just seven times here's why that's particularly striking gates is well known to their audience it's newsworthy to hear about developments of someone who's well known in the news in fact gates even rose to prominence primarily because of those many many appearances you see on the screen on fox news since august 2017 he's appeared a whopping 313 times and out of those 121 were on hannity i mean that means he's on there all the time and hannity went further this is something that almost no one does in media including even in fairness most people who work for fox news hannie went out and actively electorally campaigned for gates which is not the kind of thing anchors and journalists do this was at a 2018 rally in florida where the two men praise each other profusely i gotta thank sean hannity john hannity gives me a platform almost every night to get out there and tell it like it is and i thank him for that it's this young mickey mantle over here and it's your next governor over there [Applause] they are the ones fighting the hardest for the president and i'm very thankful to both of you for what you do every day which is why it's an honor to share the stage with both of you [Applause] you almost can't tell who's benefiting who and it was within a year or so that hannity was privately giving gates advice on managing a different crisis one where he was actually facing an ethics in pro investigation and that probe focused on whether gates was tweeting overly threatening messages at trump fixer michael cohen whether it constituted witness intimidation but hannity who we just showed you was so quick to discuss gates the campaign for him to as gates put it have him on his show almost every night well sean hannity hasn't mentioned gates once since all this became public this investigation again as mentioned as for the underlying charges gates denies any wrongdoing we're joined now by our friend jason johnson jason it's quite a turnaround yeah um matt gates has lost a lot of friends and i i i think ari like this is a good setup because we got to contextualize this it started with matt gates losing all of his friends in the republican party which is what makes him even less popular on fox right like the the republicans who came forward and and defended jim jordan after his sex scandal none of those people have come forward for him uh you know katie hill who matt gates defended at one point she has not come forward for him we just heard earlier today that joel greenberg his potentially partner in crime is now working with the feds like look if gates isn't careful you know he's gonna wind up buried next to someone else right because he's going to get in trouble for this because too many people don't like him and he no longer has a megaphone to cover it up anymore yeah and you mentioned whether or not greenberg will cooperate um you know i have mixed feelings about the second drake quote in one program but the other was by a guest so seeing what you do for fame what would you do for freedom and that's one thing facing the greenberg situation without reporting yet on whether or not he cooperates with regard to the strange relationship with handy i want to just put up for viewers another thing that came to light with how tightly they just see themselves as on a team at least until the probe became public hannity giving gates this private advice over text pull it down uh and say what you said it'll pass about this tweet about cohen that was potentially witness intimidation and then gates just asking straight up how long should i lay low and hannah he says just a while right maybe send a note to michael privately i mean this is quite a level of detail uh of two people who who admit to be teammates and yet what gates seems to be learning the hard way jason is that hannity like trump is gone the moment the heat arrives oh yes these are very transactional relationships between the republican party and fox and that's why it was also very telling the moment the scandal came out remember gates was like well i got jobs lined up and suddenly fox news was like yeah we don't know you we haven't we haven't talked to you we haven't had any formal conversations there are too many politicians right now whether it's gates or or bobert or or sarah palin a couple years ago who think that well if i'm not actually doing my job if i get in trouble in the scandal i can just have fox cover for me and it doesn't work that way anymore there's a certain disgust that even fox news may have if you get in too much trouble maybe you could get away with being a roy moore or larry craig you know three to five years ago but you can't do that anymore and gates who has alienated so many different kinds of people by being accused of being a snitch uh by not necessarily being careful with his words by trying to throw tucker carlson under the bus you know these are all things that make him radioactive even for fox news who seems to want to defend anybody under any circumstances yeah you make some really uh politically precise points there uh which are important jason that fox basically turned on gates and just gave him a full new phone who dis which isn't what you always want to hear when you thought they were your buddy uh jason thank you as always

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Length: 14min 54sec (894 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 09 2021