Late-night host Stephen Colbert made fun of Rep. Matt Gaetz after former President Trump said publicly this week that the Florida Republican never asked him for a blanket pardon before he left the White House.
“Gaetz has denied any wrongdoing, but sources say that just before the previous president left office, Gaetz asked for a blanket pardon,” Colbert said on his show Wednesday night. “Oh, I don’t think the blanket wants a pardon. I think it wants to be burned … it’s seen too much.”
“Congressman Matt Gaetz has never asked me for a pardon,” Trump said. “It must also be remembered that he has totally denied the accusations against him.”
Gaetz faces a federal investigation stemming from accusations of sexual misconduct and sex trafficking. The investigation seeks to ascertain whether Gaetz paid women — and a 17-year-old girl — for sexual favors.
The congressman has denied he had a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old and in a fiery op-ed earlier this week said he will not resign. He has claimed the allegations are part of an extortion plot by top Justice Department officials.
“Just as they once falsely attacked President Donald Trump as a Russian asset, Justice Brett Kavanaugh as a gang rapist, and even John McCain as having fathered a child out of wedlock, they now attack me,” Gaetz wrote. “Of course, none of what they say ever amounts to anything, yet it is endlessly repeated by leftist television anchors such as Chris Cuomo, who uses his platform to cover for his brother’s appalling subjection of nursing home patients to death by the coronavirus. They think themselves such wonderful arbiters of moral purpose.”
The Washington Post reported this week that Gaetz is scheduled to speak at an event for a conservative women’s group.
“You could say that’s putting the fox in the henhouse,” Colbert joked. “But Gaetz would rather hang out with the eggs.”