Florida scientist Rebekah Jones fired over whistleblower claim says she will run against Matt Gaetz
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Rebekah Jones, the former Florida Department of Health data analyst fired amid a controversy over the state’s Covid-19 case data, said on Monday that she will run for Congress against Rep Matt Gaetz, a top ally of former President Donald Trump.
In an Instagram post published late on Monday evening, Ms Jones wrote that she would challenge Mr Gaetz for his seat in 2022, though no Federal Election Commission (FEC) filings were yet filed for her potential run.
“No more sex traffickers in Congress!” she wrote, an apparent reference to the ongoing federal investigation surrounding Mr Gaetz and an associate, Joel Greenberg.
Investigators are said to be seeking to determine whether Mr Gaetz had sex with a 17-year-old. He has strenuously denied any wrongdoing and says the investigation is politically motivated.
The Independent has reached out to Ms Jones for further comment.
Her announcement comes the same day that her Twitter account was suspended, with the scientist-turned-activist blaming the suspension on her repeated posting of a Miami Herald story that she said violated the platform’s rules against spam.
The suspension was celebrated by a spokesperson for governor Ron DeSantis, a longtime critic of Ms Jones who has fought back against her claims that the state pressured her to alter Covid-19 case data, claims for which she has not provided proof.
“This decision was long overdue,” the governor’s office said, according to FloridaPolitics.com. “Rebekah Jones is the Typhoid Mary of COVID-19 disinformation and has harmed hardworking DOH employees with her defamatory conspiracy theories.”
“I hope someone will ask Ms Jones why she thinks she got suspended – will she allege that Governor DeSantis is somehow behind Twitter’s decision? That would be deeply ironic if she tried to spin that falsehood into her conspiracy theory, given the Governor’s stance on Big Tech,” added the spokesperson.
Mr Gaetz’s district is one of the most heavily-conservative in Florida, and is generally considered a safe stronghold for the GOP.
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