{"id":29228,"date":"2020-09-23T11:16:09","date_gmt":"2020-09-23T15:16:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/?p=29228"},"modified":"2020-09-23T11:16:28","modified_gmt":"2020-09-23T15:16:28","slug":"house-gop-member-calls-for-election-bribery-investigation-of-billionaire-bloomberg","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/?p=29228","title":{"rendered":"House GOP Member Calls for Election Bribery Investigation of Billionaire Bloomberg"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1>Gaetz calls for election bribery probe of Bloomberg over pledge to pay Florida felons&#8217; fines<\/h1>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<h3>&#8216;I believe there may be a criminal investigation already underway,&#8217; Gaetz tells Sean Hannity<\/h3>\n<p>By Charles Creitz | Fox News<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-29230\" src=\"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/bloomberg-gaetz.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"764\" height=\"432\" srcset=\"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/bloomberg-gaetz.jpg 764w, https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/bloomberg-gaetz-300x170.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 764px) 100vw, 764px\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"speakable\">House Judiciary Committee member Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., told &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/shows\/hannity\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Hannity<\/a>&#8221;\u00a0Tuesday that he has spoken with Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody about potentially launching a bribery investigation into former New York City Mayor\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/category\/person\/michael-bloomberg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Michael Bloomberg<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"speakable\">&#8220;I believe there may be a criminal investigation already underway of the Bloomberg-connected activities in Florida,&#8221; Gaetz told host Sean Hannity.<\/p>\n<div class=\"embed-media twitter\">\n<div class=\"tweet-embed\">\n<div class=\"twitter-tweet twitter-tweet-rendered\"><iframe id=\"twitter-widget-0\" class=\"\" title=\"Twitter Tweet\" src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/embed\/index.html?dnt=false&amp;embedId=twitter-widget-0&amp;frame=false&amp;hideCard=false&amp;hideThread=true&amp;id=1308586784184512512&amp;lang=en&amp;origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.foxnews.com%2Fpolitics%2Fmatt-gaetz-election-bribery-probe-bloomberg-florida&amp;siteScreenName=foxnews&amp;theme=light&amp;widgetsVersion=219d021%3A1598982042171&amp;width=550px\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" data-tweet-id=\"1308586784184512512\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Bloomberg, who briefly joined the race for the Democratic presidential nomination earlier this year, has reportedly raised more than $16 million for the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition.<\/p>\n<p>Under the Florida state constitution, convicted felons can regain their voting rights after having served their time. However, a\u00a0law enacted by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis states that felons\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/us\/florida-trial-weighing-voting-rights-for-felons-begins-via-video-chat-amid-coronavirus\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">must pay all fines, restitution, and other legal financial obligations<\/a>\u00a0before their sentences could be considered fully served.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.leg.state.fl.us\/statutes\/index.cfm?mode=View%20Statutes&amp;SubMenu=1&amp;App_mode=Display_Statute&amp;Search_String=104.061&amp;URL=0100-0199\/0104\/Sections\/0104.061.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">[Under Florida law]<\/a>\u00a0it\u2019s a third-degree felony\u00a0for someone to either directly or\u00a0indirectly provide something of\u00a0value to impact whether or not\u00a0someone votes,&#8221; Gaetz explained. &#8220;So the question is whether or not\u00a0paying off someone\u2019s fines and\u00a0legal obligations counts as\u00a0something of value, and it\u00a0clearly does.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;If Michael Bloomberg was offering to pay off people&#8217;s credit card debt,&#8221; Gaetz added, &#8220;you would obviously see the value in that.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;[W]hen you improve\u00a0someone\u2019s net worth by\u00a0eliminating their financial\u00a0liabilities, that\u2019s something of\u00a0value,&#8221; he went on.\u00a0&#8220;Normally, it would be very\u00a0difficult to prove that that was\u00a0directly linked to impacting\u00a0whether or not someone was going\u00a0to vote.\u00a0But they literally wrote their\u00a0own admission.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/politics\/bloomberg-pours-16m-into-florida-race-to-pay-restitution-for-former-felons-to-vote\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">A Bloomberg memo first reported\u00a0by the Washington Post read<\/a>:\u00a0\u201cWe know to win Florida we will need to persuade, motivate and add new votes to the Biden column. This means we need to explore all avenues for finding the needed votes when so many votes are already determined.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe data shows that in Florida, Black voters are a unique universe unlike any other voting bloc, where the Democratic support rate tends to be 90%-95%,&#8221; the memo continued.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The law is clear this is\u00a0something of value,&#8221; Gaetz reiterated,\u00a0&#8220;and I am\u00a0encouraged after my conversation\u00a0with the attorney general. I\u00a0hope we have good\u00a0law enforcement all over the country looking for the cheating\u00a0and the tricks that these\u00a0Democrats are going to try in this election.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><em>Fox News&#8217; Vandana Rambaran contributed to this report<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>___<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/politics\/matt-gaetz-election-bribery-probe-bloomberg-florida\">https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/politics\/matt-gaetz-election-bribery-probe-bloomberg-florida<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Gaetz calls for election bribery probe of Bloomberg over pledge to pay Florida felons&#8217; fines<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29228","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29228","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29228"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29228\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29228"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29228"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29228"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}