WATCH: Matt Gaetz Defends 2017 Vote Against Creating a New Human Trafficking Administrator

Rep. Matt Gaetz’s (R-FL) vote against a 2017 proposal related to human trafficking is under fresh scrutiny this week after an allegation the Justice Department is investigating his relationship with a 17-year-old girl that took place two years ago.

The Combating Human Trafficking in Commercial Vehicles Act contained relatively mundane provisions, which included measures to designate a human trafficking coordinator at the Department of Transportation and to create a new advisory committee within the department. Gaetz, ironically, has inspired more attention for the legislation than it received at the time of its passage, owing to the fact that he was the sole member of the United States House to vote against it.

In a video he posted shortly after the vote was taken, Gaetz said the legislation represented “mission creep” by the federal government, and suggested that other federal agencies — including the Justice Department — were already responsible for overseeing the issue. He also pointed to his two-year tenure as chairman of the Florida House’s Criminal Justice Committee, and legislation the chamber passed during that period to combat trafficking in the state.

Gaetz noted that he recorded the video in his parents’ house and acknowledged that Nestor, to whom he referred as his “helper,” was seated in the background. Gaetz disclosed last year that Nestor — then aged 19 — was his adopted son.

Defending his vote, Gaetz said, in part:

Here’s my approach tot he issue. I served as the chairman of the Criminal Justice Committee in the Florida Legislature for two years. And during that time, Tampa was actually the third-worst place in America for human trafficking. And so, as you can imagine, we had a lot of legislators really interested and concerned about the issue.

The main problem we had is that prosecutors couldn’t bring human trafficking cases, because the elements were too difficult to meet, specifically the element of duress. The case in Florida used to be that you had to prove physical duress to bring a human trafficking prosecution, meaning someone had to literally put their hands on someone … I was part of the leadership that changed that definition, so that now economic duress, psychological duress, those forms of duress can meet the duress element so that we can actually bring cases and lock up traffickers.

Why, then, would I be the only ‘No’ vote in the entire cCongress against legislation that had ‘human trafficking’ in the title? I assure you, it’s not because I don’t think human trafficking is a problem. It absolutely is. But far too often, the best of intentions can lead to mission creep at the federal level, and the expansion of a federal government well beyond what our founders intended, and well beyond what is in the U.S. Constitution.

…

And so, in our office, we have a rule. If there is legislation that creates a new government entity, a new agency, a new board, a new commission, a new council, we immediately scrutinize that. Unless there is an overwhelming, compelling reason that our existing agencies in the federal government can’t handle that problem, I vote ‘No.’ Voters in northwest Florida did not send me to Washington to go and create more federal government. If anything, we should be abolishing a lot of the agencies at the federal level — like the Department of Education, like the EPA, and sending that power back to our state governments.

So where there’s a necessity to change legal standards to bring prosecutions against human traffickers, I’m all in, and I’ve been very successful in implementing that legislation here in our state. But when it comes to another excuse for government to grow, another excuse for people to get together and have meetings with each other and travel places and get per diems, I don’t think we really advance the cause we care about by pursuing that endeavor. 

Right now, we have the Department of Justice, the FBI, Homeland Security — we have our state prosecuting systems, we have other federal intelligence agencies, all that could contribute to the human trafficking fight today, and there isn’t a need for a law for these people to get together and meet with each other. They could do that now.

Watch above via Facebook.