The House GOP has a sleazy sex pest list.
The Party of Family Values keeps its perverted members in line by threatening mutually assured destruction.
MAGA Republicans in the House of Representatives watched the 2011 Lonely Island music video ft. Nicki Minaj and John Waters, “The Creep,” mistaking the refrain, “do the creep,” as a commandment from the Christian God.
A gross subplot emerged during the interregnum winter of 2024. The House GOP has soiled laundry in the form of a list of known-but-secret sexual harassers they threaten to bring into the light when they need to ruin each other.
Conventional wisdom is that in today’s Washington, governed by Presidents Donald Trump and Elon Musk, lurid scandals seem quaint and boring. “Character no longer counts,” Republican strategists now say—and perhaps this is true!—but until their leaders admit this outright, the Party of Family Values ought to enforce internal moral standards or abandon its religious bleating.
“Republican sex scandals” are not shocking or novel. Everybody knows their litany of 21st century perverts and criminals—this is a party, after all, which named the gridlock-inducing “Hastert rule” after former House Speaker and registered sex offender Dennis Hastert (R-IL), who molested teenaged pages.
Senator Larry Craig (R-ID) pleaded guilty to soliciting sex in an airline bathroom.
Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL), self-proclaimed protector of exploited children, resigned after it was reported he had a history of sending sexually explicit messages to boys.
When former Representative Matt Gaetz was nominated to be Mr. Trump’s attorney general—at the time, I compared him to the “Disco Duck”—a House Ethics report indicated that he was in the habit of “seeking arrangements” with teenaged “sugar babies,” transporting them across state lines to watch him on Fox News, attend “Pretty Woman” on Broadway, and have sex with him. Instead of encouraging these young women to get good jobs or stay in school, the then-sitting congressman was getting “molly-whopped” with them on the illegal and neurotoxic psychoactive drug MDMA (also known as “ecstasy.”)
A few Republicans still considered these crimes were disqualifying, although Mr. Trump’s allies made clear they were “cool” with it.
On this, Rep. Marjorie Taylor-Greene (R-GA), the #2 Google search result for “crazy congresswoman”) made an interesting threat. She went on Twitter (whose owner, Mr. Musk, allegedly showed his penis to one of his SpaceX employees) and said:
“For my Republican colleagues in the House and Senate, [i]f we are going to release ethics reports and rip apart our own that Trump has appointed, then put it ALL out there for the American people to see. Yes… all the ethics reports and claims including the one I filed[,] all your sexual harassment and assault claims that were secretly settled paying off victims with tax payer [sic] money[,] the entire Jeffrey Epstein files, tapes, recordings, witness interviews[.] [B]ut not just those, there’s more, Epstein wasn’t/isn’t [sic] the only asset[.] If we’re going to dance, let’s all dance in the sunlight. I’ll make sure we do.”
Well, Ms. Greene, Mr. Gaetz’s Ethics report was released, and it was damning, but I do not see you “danc[ing] in the sunlight.”
Uniquely surprising is the insinuation that Ms. Greene apparently believes her colleagues went flying on the Lolita Express with Mr. Trump’s “closest friend” Jeffrey Epstein, and that she was also sexually harassed by another House Republican but was willing to stay silent as long as Mr. Gaetz is protected.
Ms. Greene was too humble when she claimed she was not a “team player.”
Mr. Gaetz, also a liar, threatened to un-resign from Congress and file “a privileged motion to expose every ‘me too’ settlement paid using public funds (even of former members).” But he did not.
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), who also has not “spilled the tea” on his colleagues, echoed the call for public accounting of the $17 million Congressional “sexual harassment slush fund.”
Former Reps. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) and Mo Brooks (R-AL) concurred, despite refusing to snitch themselves.
This brings to mind the ominous warnings from former Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-NC) (who later lost a primary after videos leaked of him with a staffer’s hand on his testicles and “nude thrusting” atop his cousin). Mr. Cawthorn complained about getting invited to orgies and alluded to the “sexual perversion that goes on in Washington.” He said of his fellow Republicans: “[GOP lawmakers] leading on the movement to try and remove addiction in our country [did] key bump[s] of cocaine right in front of [me].”
You should not be surprised to learn that Mr. Cawthorn has not named these drug-fueled freaks.
The sadly declining Washington Post reported House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), a man who asked his son to stop him from watching Internet pornography and is laudable among his colleagues for not cheating on his wife, recently intervened in his caucus’s bullshit investigation into the investigation of the January 6 committee. He “advised Republican colleagues against subpoenaing former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson as part of their investigation into the [Capitol Insurrection] in an effort to prevent the release of sexually explicit texts that lawmakers sent her.”
Presuming this investigation has any legitimacy—which it does not—this has disturbing implications. If House Republicans cannot issue subpoenas without also entering into the record photographs of their genitals they sent to witnesses—and they are unwilling to show America those photographs of their genitals—then their congressional work is impeded for the sake of protecting the most un-Christian sleazebags.
If this sleazy culture is so widespread that Ms. Greene and others argue that no Republican should face scrutiny unless all crimes are revealed—and GOP leadership agrees out of fear of mutually assured destruction—then bad actors can and will extort and manipulate them. Republicans have no choice but to vote in lockstep with MAGA if they do not want Mr. Johnson to tell the American people what they have done to interns.
According to Ms. Greene, Mr. Gaetz, Mr. Cawthorn, and others, these sex scandals are “just the tip” of what Mr. Johnson is keeping mum. Some notable examples:
Jim Jordan accused of ‘begging’ former Ohio State wrestler not to support reports of sexual abuse
Rep. Van Taylor apologizes for affair with ‘ISIS bride,’ abruptly drops reelection bid
[Rep. Tom Reed] announces resignation from Congress following sexual misconduct claims
[Rep. Patrick Meehan] Combating Harassment Settled His Own Misconduct Case
And of course:
This has been an ongoing and unaddressed problem. Even the meanest, most loyal MAGA Republicans think so. Something should be done!
Assuredly, a clever fellow is preparing himself to say: “Ah, but what of the Democrats? Do they not have villains in their ranks, too?” As if I give a shit. If a Democratic congressperson is abusing their power or staff, you can kick them to the curb too.
My friends, we ought to call Mr. Johnson’s office at (202)-225-2777 and write letters to demand he reveal which congressmen used the American People’s money to pay off their accusers.
Maybe this seems less important now that Messrs. Trump and Musk are mid-coup. It certainly feels quaint. But there is real value to pushing out the perverts. Say what you will about nerds and Puritans, but it is harder to control people who do not have to cover their shame or protect themselves from prosecution and public scrutiny.
Keep an eye out for more allusions to this sad state of affairs. This moral rot will not cure itself.