Disgraced ex-Rep. Matt Gaetz to headline Kansas election conspiracy fest | Opinion
To paraphrase F. Scott Fitzgerald, Kansas Republican election deniers are different from you and me.
How else can one explain “Kansas Reckoning 2025,” an event scheduled for Dec. 13 in Overland Park, which is bringing in disgraced ex-Florida congressman Matt Gaetz to speak on “safeguarding election integrity”?
The enduring image of Gaetz’s congressional service is his colleagues applauding last January as the clerk read a statement that Gaetz was resigning — rather than return and face allegations of financial and sexual misconduct, including with a 17-year-old girl.
This was after President Donald Trump had announced he was nominating Gaetz for attorney general, and even the Republican majority in the Senate couldn’t stomach the idea.
I tried to reach the main organizer of Kansas Reckoning, Hannah Mingucci, an Olathe photographer specializing in “Campaign headshots, Family photos, Santa pictures, Events, Engagements and Wedding photos.”
According to its state disclosures, the Kansas Reckoning PAC started out with $380 in 2023 and still had $349 of it left at its last report in January.
So far, no response to the message I left for Mingucci. I’m not surprised.
I really only had three questions: 1) Who is Matt Gaetz to be advising anybody on integrity of anything? 2) What were you thinking? and 3) What are you smoking, and is it legally available?
If Gaetz had returned to his congressional seat, it likely wouldn’t have been a long stay.
Just so nobody can accuse me of taking things out of context here, the following is quoted directly from the findings of the House Ethics Committee, which, by the way, is the only committee that includes equal representation from both parties, regardless of who controls the House:
In sum, the Committee found substantial evidence of the following:
• From at least 2017 to 2020, Representative Gaetz regularly paid women for engaging in sexual activity with him.
• In 2017, Representative Gaetz engaged in sexual activity with a 17-year-old girl.
• During the period 2017 to 2019, Representative Gaetz used or possessed illegal drugs, including cocaine and ecstasy, on multiple occasions.
• Representative Gaetz accepted gifts, including transportation and lodging in connection with a 2018 trip to the Bahamas, in excess of permissible amounts.
• In 2018, Representative Gaetz arranged for his Chief of Staff to assist a woman with whom he engaged in sexual activity in obtaining a passport, falsely indicating to the U.S. Department of State that she was a constituent.
• Representative Gaetz knowingly and willfully sought to impede and obstruct the Committee’s investigation of his conduct.
• Representative Gaetz has acted in a manner that reflects discreditably upon the House.
How can this be real?
When the first announcement for the Reckoning Kansas event popped up in my Facebook feed, my immediate reaction was “This can’t be real. It has to be a fake post from Democrats trying to discredit Kansas Republicans.”
But I checked around and found that Gaetz himself is promoting his appearance and there is a website selling tickets — $50 for the main event and $200 for a “VIP package” including “Exclusive post-event meet & greet with Matt Gaetz” and “Photos with Matt Gaetz.”
How exciting.
It’s not every day you get the opportunity to have your picture taken with the second-most-prominent Republican politician allegedly linked to sexual misconduct with underage girls.
That’s one you’ll want to frame and hang on your bathroom wall.
Joining Gaetz for the orgy of election denial are Pastor Lorenzo Sewell of Detroit, a “spiritual advisor” to Trump who spoke at his inauguration and the 2024 Republican National Convention, and Seth Keshel, a retired Army captain best known for spreading debunked election theories under the nom de guerre “Captain K.”
Pro tip: If you want to save $50 (or $200), you could skip Reckoning Kansas entirely and just attend a meeting of the Kansas House and Senate Election committees. They invite the same sort of fringy flakes spreading the same pseudo-statistical disinformation.
And in the Capitol, it’s not just talk; you can watch our legislators actually using that testimony in crafting our election laws.
Best of all, the committee hearings are free to attend and probably even more entertaining than listening to Gaetz rant.
I mean, who could forget the time Charlotte O’Hara — ex-Kansas legislator, ex-Johnson County commissioner and current candidate for governor — expertly melded her own weird conspiracy theories about mail voting with an imaginary slight against Christianity at the White House Easter Egg Roll?
Kansas Reckoning 2025 will be held somewhere in Overland Park. The venue is undisclosed, revealed only to those who buy a ticket. Paranoia runs strong in the election-denier crowd, so that’s probably for the best.
The flyer for the event warns: “Limited tickets — claim yours now!”
I’m sure the number of tickets is limited to how many they can actually sell, which hopefully won’t be very many.
