Amid the hurly-burly of presidential dropouts, attempted presidential assassinations, and novel presidential conventions, the gears of Washington grind on. 

A sideline moment of the winding last week in Wisconsin was a direct confrontation between Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) and his pet aversion, the former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. 

“What night are you speaking?” Gaetz quizzed McCarthy. “Are you speaking tonight?” 

“If you took that stage, you would get booed off of it,” he added. “You would get booed off the stage.” In a game-after interview with CNN, McCarthy shot back: “[Gaetz] looks very unhinged.” 

The representative from Florida’s First District, of course, led the successful charge last autumn to defenestrate the then-speaker. Gaetz alleged a panoply of heresies—spending issues, foreign policy, etc—where McCarthy was said to be deficient in comparison to alternatives. 

Gaetz eventually backed now-Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA). 

McCarthy, as of late, has said the story is simpler. The Californian wouldn’t stop a House Ethics Committee investigation into years-old allegations against Gaetz (allegations for which he was never charged). But from the outside looking in, McCarthy’s side of the story would seem no clean tale of moral probity. 

Far from being above the fray, McCarthy in private life has initiated a “revenge tour” of sorts, attempting to primary his former foes in Congress. 

Perhaps most prominently, Charleston-area Congresswoman Nancy Mace—a former McCarthy acolyte turned ally of Gaetz et al.—survived a primary challenge in June. “I want to send him back to the rock he’s living under right now. He’s not part of America.… I hope I drive Kevin McCarthy crazy,” Mace told the Times.

Now the primary effort of the hardliners and the ethics investigation against Gaetz have apparently merged. 

Congressman David Joyce (R-OH) is a member of the House Ethics Committee, which is probing Gaetz. The American Conservative found financial disclosures that reveal Rep. Joyce’s campaign and his leadership PAC donated a combined $7,000 to Gaetz’s primary challenger, Aaron Dimmock.  

For his part, Gaetz told TAC: “It is no surprise to see Mr. Joyce, a stock-trading member of the ethics committee, funding my opponent. The ethics committee was hand picked by McCarthy and they will do his bidding in elections and in their witch hunt coming after me.” 

There is evidence here of a $2,000 transaction from Friends of Dave Joyce (his campaign committee) and then $5,000 from Defending American Values Everywhere PAC (DAVE PAC)—his leadership committee.

What comes next is unclear. 

Depending on what the committee finds (a source close to the matter indicates the likely timeline is “at this rate” after the election), Gaetz could face expulsion from the House. But the stink of potential conflict-of-interest could corrode the legitimacy of any report. 

And the political realpolitik is murky.

Gaetz is a stalwart ally of Trump, and if the president is re-elected, it would seem unlikely that the first order of the day would be to punish allies based on a potentially tainted report. 

If Trump loses, and the Democrats take the House, the precedent of removing a member of Congress who has never been charged with a crime would also weigh heavily. Recent examples such as Rep. George Santos of New York and Rep. James Traficant of Ohio involved situations in which both figures had at least been charged with crimes.  

Most serious: There is the question of why Gaetz has been such a focus. 

Since at least 2019, Gaetz has set himself apart in advocating for a hardline position of foreign policy restraint, making him a standout in a Trumpian fray that has countenanced hawkish and even neoconservative elements. 

“The ‘fog of war’ is no fog to me, or any of the 700,000 people I serve,” Gaetz said five springs ago, when he was beginning to make his mark on this front. 

“It is not hazy,” said Gaetz, whose North Florida district has among the highest concentrations of active-duty military in America. “We see the impact of war every day among the people we love who shape our lives.” 

Add in the background of Joyce. 

Ohio has rising stars on the restraint right such as the vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and Rep. Warren Davidson. And the Buckeye state would seem very much at the center of the new Republican politics, as I wrote for the TAC cover piece in the March/April 2024 issue. 

But in other ways, Ohio is a vestige of the old guard. 

Joyce has contemporaries such as Rep. Mike Turner, the House intel chair, who represents a more establishment perspective. Turner was a sparring partner with former Fox host Tucker Carlson. Turner’s district features an epic military base, “with over 30,000 employees and an annual contribution of $16.68 billion to our regional economy,” per Turner’s own reporting.   

Joyce was a prime advocate of the contentious foreign military aid packages to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan that passed out in the Spring. 

“Today was not only a vote to support our allies when they need it the most, but also a vote to protect America’s national security. China, Russia and Iran are anti-American regimes that have no intent of stopping their aggressions with our allies. They also pose a strong and dangerous threat to Americans here at home,” Joyce said. “This package provides the critical funding necessary for Israel, Ukraine, and Taiwan to defend their freedom. Something every American should stand for.”

For what it’s worth, Gaetz voted against all three of those packages.