Of Course ‘Venmo’ Is Trending Because Matt Gaetz Tweeted Support For Steve Bannon

On Friday, a few weeks after he refused to cooperate with a subpoena from the Jan. 6 committee, Steve Bannon was federally indicted. The news came as a bit of a surprise, perhaps to Bannon himself, too. The committee, which is investigating the events leading up to the Capitol siege, has subpoenaed a number of other close Trump associates, some of whom may wind up in big legal trouble if they make like Bannon. But that hasn’t stopped other allies from trying to downplay that fateful day and claim, erroneously, that it’s fine to break the law.

One of them was Matt Gaetz, the embattled Florida congressman who already has problems of his own. Gaetz, too, is in trouble, being the subject of a federal investigation into his ties to a sex trafficking ring. Publicly he’s tried to ignore it; privately he’s lawyered the heck up. But perhaps he saw a kinship with someone who’s also in deep doo-doo.

“Steve Bannon did nothing wrong,” Gaetz tweeted on Friday. The statement was patently false: Bannon ignored a subpoena, and being held in contempt of Congress was the least that could befall him.

But rather than unpack his argument, a lot of people simply made jokes about Venmo, reminding people that earlier this year he was busted for using the popular app to wire money to Joel Greenberg, who is connected with said sex trafficking ring and who is playing ball with the feds.

And thus, Venmo went viral, all thanks to Gaetz’s big mouth.