Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) apparently thinks his political enemies want to throw a wrench into his wedding plans.
The congressman penned an op-ed, published Monday by The Washington Examiner, in which he defends himself amid a Justice Department investigation into payments he and an indicted Florida politician made to women allegedly recruited online for sex.
"First, I have never, ever paid for sex," Gaetz wrote, while also dismissing reports that he recently had a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old. "And second, I, as an adult man," he clarified, "have not slept with a 17-year-old."
Gaetz believes he's being targeted by "partisan crooks" in the Justice Department because he "loathes the swamp" — a reference to the Washington, D.C., political establishment — and "fights both sides of it on a daily basis."
Painting the investigation as a political smear campaign isn't particularly surprising or uncommon for a congressman in Gaetz's situation, but he took things a step further and suggested his opponents are also out to get him because he's happily engaged.
"It comes as no surprise that my political opponents want to sensationalize and criminalize my prior sex life just as I am getting engaged to the best person I've ever known," he wrote. "It is regrettable that the battle of ideas should thus become so personal. But then again, when your ideas suck, you need to stoop this low." Read the full op-ed at The Washington Examiner.