Once among the most controversial figures in Congress, a former lawmaker has now become the leading campaign financier for a congresswoman who is equally contentious.
Matt Gaetz, the Republican from Florida who stepped down from his congressional post in 2024 amid various allegations of sexual misconduct, has emerged as the biggest financial supporter for Lauren Boebert. Boebert, a GOP representative from Colorado, gained notoriety for an incident involving inappropriate behavior with her date at a theater in Denver.
Federal records indicate that Gaetz contributed $6,600 to Boebert’s reelection campaign during the financial reporting period concluding in March.
Interestingly, during the same timeframe, Boebert has been advocating for stricter penalties against sexual offenders, including those within the legislative body accused of severe misconduct.
The third-term Republican has expressed that certain members of Congress should face expulsion instead of being permitted to resign, advocating for the removal of their pensions and other benefits.
“That’s quite ironic,” remarked a political analyst in Washington, D.C., to the Daily Mail. “She appears to be taking a moral stand but doesn’t seem to mind where her campaign funds originate.”
And Eileen Laubacher, Boebert’s presumptive Democratic opponent in November’s election, added: ‘For someone who ran against the Washington establishment, Boebert has become exactly what she claimed to fight against – a typical insider politician who says one thing and does another when it benefits her politically.
‘You cannot claim to stand with victims while repeatedly promoting and defending someone facing serious allegations involving sexual misconduct and minors.’
Lauren Boebert has called for tougher punishment for sexual misconduct in Congress while taking campaign cash from Matt Gaetz, the Daily Mail can reveal
The alliance between Gaetz and Boebert (above, together in the US House chamber in 2023) comes as she calls for harsher consequences for abusive lawmakers
Boebert is perhaps best known outside her Colorado district for an incident in which she and her date groped and fondled each other while attending a 2023 performance of the musical Beetlejuice.
After audience members complained that she was vaping inside the theater, using her phone and disrupting others during the performance, surveillance footage showed her date placing a hand on her breast and Boebert seemingly reaching toward his groin.
Theater staff asked her to leave, and she was escorted out. Boebert denied acting inappropriately until surveillance video of her and her male companion was unveiled.
The congresswoman has, in recent months, framed her comments about sexual misconduct among her colleagues in moral and religious terms, asking: ‘Why is everybody so horny here?’ and telling fellow members to ‘Go to church, find Jesus.’
Her query came after a pair of resignations roiled the House of Representatives following sexual misconduct allegations against former congressmen Eric Swalwell and Tony Gonzales.
The two men called it quits in April after mounting pressure and allegations of fornicating with their staffers. Both denied wrongdoing.
Boebert’s statement about the ‘horny’ lawmakers, however, prompted a flood of hilarious responses pointing to her own antics at the Denver theater.
That footage shows a man placing his hands on Boebert’s chest, and she reciprocates by getting handsy herself.
She was later kicked out of the venue after being caught vaping during the show.
Boebert was infamously caught on surveillance footage groping and being groped during a Beetlejuice musical at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts in 2023
Boebert has also spoken out against other high-profile sexual predators, emerging as one of the Republicans most loudly pushing the Justice Department to release the full cache of Jeffrey Epstein files.
She has decried the pedophile financier’s co-conspirator, Ghislaine Maxwell, as ‘a monster’ for her role in sex trafficking teenage girls.
In 2024, a bipartisan House Ethics Committee investigation found ‘substantial evidence’ that Gaetz violated sex trafficking laws by having sexual encounters with a 17-year-old, a minor under Florida law.
The report also concluded that he likely broke other laws by paying women for sex, using cocaine and ecstasy, making tens of thousands of dollars in payments to women connected to those activities and obstructing the investigation.
The Justice Department investigated him for possible sex trafficking, but no criminal charges were ultimately filed. Gaetz denied any wrongdoing.
Neither Boebert’s congressional nor her campaign offices have returned the Daily Mail’s request for comment about the apparent hypocrisy of decrying the kind of conduct her top donor allegedly engaged in.
Gaetz could not be reached for comment.
Since his resignation from Congress, he has been working as a TV commentator and Republican influencer and activist, and eyeing a future run for political office.
Boebert has appeared four times on The Matt Gaetz Show in the last six months. Despite his past history of sexual assault and statutory rape accusations, which he has denied, she even suggested that Gaetz lead the investigation into the Epstein files.
