Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) is not wanted as an employee, a spokesman for Newsmax told Reuters, the news agency reported Monday.
Brian Peterson said on Monday that Newsmax had no plans to take up a job request from Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) after reports suggested he would leave Congress early to take a role with the network.
“Newsmax has had no plans to hire Rep. Gaetz,” Peterson told Reuters. “The company never told Gaetz we were interested,” he added.
Gaetz had considered leaving Congress to pursue a career in television, setting his sights on prominent conservative news channels such as Fox News, One America News Network (OANN) and Newsmax, a favored news source of former President Trump, with whom Gaetz is aligned.
But his plans got derailed after reports emerged that Gaetz was being investigated by the Department of Justice over an alleged relationship with a 17-year-old girl.
Shortly after the report, Fox News confirmed that it had no plans to hire Gaetz.
“No one with any level of authority has had conversations with Matt Gaetz for any of our platforms, and we have no interest in hiring him,” the network said in a statement at the time.
Robert Herring, founder and CEO of OANN, later told the Daily Beast that he was “not really hiring anybody for talk shows,” as Gaetz reportedly desired.
Meanwhile, Gaetz’s associate Joel Greenberg pleaded guilty last month to six federal crimes, including sex trafficking of a minor. Greenberg made a plea deal with investigators, agreeing to cooperate in the probe. A federal judge last week approved the plea deal for Greenberg.
