Another top aide to Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) has resigned, a person familiar with the matter told The Daily Beast on Thursday.
Devin Murphy, who had served as Gaetz’s legislative director at Capitol Hill, officially came to a halt on Friday as the scandal surrounding a federal investigation into Gaetz’s alleged sexual misconduct continued to escalate. On Thursday evening, The Daily Beast reported that Gaetz had won Venmo with $ 900 to his friend and alleged child sex trafficker Joel Greenberg in May 2018. Greenberg later paid the same amount of money to three women, one of whom had turned 18 just five months earlier.
Murphy ‘s resignation was first announced by The New York Times. According to the Time, Murphy had confided to associates that he was not interested in getting caught up in a “TMZ” type environment.
Murphy did not respond to repeated requests for comment from The Daily Beast on Thursday. Gaetz did not respond immediately either.
Murphy had been working for Gaetz since February 2017, almost immediately after Donald Trump’s top ally stepped on Capitol Hill, according to Legistorm, the unofficial director of the online Congress. He began in office as a junior legislative assistant and was promoted to legislative director in December 2018. Murphy’s LinkedIn page does not nominate which member of Congress he worked for, but only lists him as a “House of Representatives of the United States, ”but indicated that the work was completed in April 2021. Its other dates of occupation coincide with those of Legistorm.
Murphy is the second member of Gaetz to leave the office from The New York News On March 31, he reported that the congressman is under control by federal investigators looking to see if he paid underage girls for sex, among other things. Its communications director, Luke Ball, resigned last week. A statement from Gaetz’s office said the two sides agreed “it would be best to separate”.
The outing adds to what was already a difficult day for the congressman. On Thursday, Gaetz’s colleague Joel Greenberg, whose friend and political ally would be his bond with young women and girls, appeared in a Florida court, apparently apparently willing to pact with the feds and cooperate in his Gaetz research. “I’m sure Matt Gaetz doesn’t feel very comfortable today,” Greenberg’s defense attorney told the press in Orlando.
Shortly afterwards, the congressman’s office issued a statement signed by the women in his office attesting to his character, although only one, his chief of staff, attached his name.
The congressman himself has resisted calls to resign, as he insists that the allegations against him of minor sex and sex trafficking are false and that they are used to extort him and his family.
And his two current aides are not the only ones close (or, once close) to Gaetz who distance themselves from the MAGA icon. As reported by The Daily Beast late last week, former President Trump, who is no stranger to defending himself by friends, nor himself, when accused of sexual misconduct or assault, has been warned in private by several advisers to keep their mouths shut about the Gaetz scandal as much as possible. So far, the two-time former president has almost completely complied with his requests.
“For something like that, a ten-foot stick isn’t enough,” said Barry Bennett, a longtime Republican operative and lobbyist who advised Trump during his 2016 career. as far as possible from that “.