Matt Gaetz sees ‘brush back’ in being kept off Trump’s impeachment team – By Melanie Zanona and Marianne Levine (Politico) / Jan 22 2020
The firebrand Trump ally thinks he may have been snubbed by a White House official for voting to rein in the president’s war powers.
Rep. Matt Gaetz, one of President Donald Trump’s staunchest allies on Capitol Hill, suspects a senior White House aide pushed to keep him off the president’s impeachment defense team — weeks after the Florida Republican voted to rein in Trump’s war powers.
Gaetz (R-Fla.) was in the mix to become one of Trump’s impeachment advisors, a group of House Republicans who are expected to assist the White House with messaging and strategy throughout the Senate impeachment trial. But Gaetz — a conservative firebrand who caught Trump’s eye through his feisty appearances and memorable soundbites on cable news — did not make the final list, which ultimately included eight other House Republicans.
Gaetz said he wasn’t sure why he didn’t make the cut. But Gaetz said he heard from someone in the White House that legislative affairs director Eric Ueland was “responsible for the brush back.”
“I don’t know why it would serve someone in the White House to manufacture a divide between the president and one of his best communicators during impeachment,” Gaetz said in an interview.
When asked to respond to Gaetz’s allegations, Ueland did not comment directly on them. But he did mention Gaetz’s support for a House resolution to halt further U.S. military action against Iran. Gaetz had also lobbied some of his fellow House Republicans to back the measure after Democrats added one of his amendments, according to an email obtained by POLITICO and first reported by the Washington Post, which drew the ire of the White House.
“While the Trump administration was disappointed in Mr. Gaetz’s vote, the president’s successful policy to reduce Iranian terror and misbehavior proves the path laid out by the president is working,” Ueland said in a statement. “We look forward to working with Mr. Gaetz in the future.”
In response, Gaetz said: “He knows it’s House Democrats, not Iran, who are impeaching the president, right?”
“I thought ‘Legislative Affairs’ folks were supposed to help the president add friends — not extend silly fights with the president’s best friends,” Gaetz added.
Continue to article: https://www.politico.com/news/2020/01/22/matt-gaetz-trump-impeachment-team-102534
