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Who is Luke Ball? Matt Gaetz's long-time aide quits as politician gets engulfed in storm over sex with minor

Gaetz's communications director parts ways out of 'principle' with the Florida Congressman

The office of Matt Gaetz announced that longtime aide Luke Ball is no longer employed by the Flordia Congressman. Ball has played multiple roles for Gaetz over the years and was recently the Communications Director for the Congressman. According to the press release, "the Office of Congressman Matt Gaetz and Luke Ball have agreed that it would be best to part ways. We thank him for his time in our office, and we wish him the best moving forward."

Within minutes of the announcement, Ball also removed any mention of Gaetz from his Twitter biography. The news is the latest setback for the Florida Congressman, who is in the middle of a massive scandal where he allegedly had sex with a minor. Gaetz has denied the allegations and refused to resign. But as more and more information comes to light, it is becoming increasingly hard for Gaetz to defend himself.

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Is that why Ball quit? We aren't sure, since neither he nor Gaetz has addressed the issue in detail. The high-profile resignation is the first, but may not be the last if more damning details come to light. Here's everything we know about Ball.

Who is Luke Ball?

A native of Florida, Ball studied at the Wilmington Christian Academy and graduated from Pensacola Christian College in 2018. According to his LinkedIn profile, he interned with Gaetz between February and August 2017. He then moved on to become a Congressional Aide to Gaetz. In 2018, Ball also briefly served as the Deputy Digital Director for Florida Governor Ron DeSantis' campaign. He then returned to Gaetz's office, where he worked as a Press Assistant, before moving up to become the Press Secretary in 2019. In November 2019, he was promoted to Communications Director.

Apart from his work with Gaetz, Ball is also the founder of RightLife Media. LinkedIn lists Ball as the only employee of the organization, which specializes in politicians. According to the firm's website, "from campaigns to congress, I've created videos, websites, podcasts, livestreams, and social media content for candidates and elected officials." Ball is quite active on Twitter, regularly tweeting content about other Republicans including Jim Jordan and DeSantis. 

In late 2020, he was reportedly involved in an accident on his bike. According to reports, Ball said a 16-year-old driver ran a red light at rammed into him at an intersection. He had to have surgery on his broken left leg. He issued a detailed statement on Twitter following the incident. 

Not much else is know about Ball, who seems to have kept a relatively low profile to date. Reacting to the news, many on Twitter trolled both him and Gaetz. 

'This Gaetz better by the minute' jokes Twitter

One user tweeted, "Nobody with a whiff of “principle” would have gone to work for shit bag @mattgaetz in the first place. Luke Ball’s services are unlikely to be in demand". Another joked, "So Luke Ball finally grew some balls to quit?"

Another person said, "Gotta distance yourself from the dumpster fire before you get burned. Hard to imagine that he wouldn't have known about Matt's outstanding 'character' though." One more person tweeted, "I would have to think putting down "Did nothing" for whatever time period he worked for Gaetz is going to be better than admitting he worked for Gaetz."

"This Gaetz better by the minute" one person joked. Another questioned, "Luke Ball stayed for all the illegal stuff and is leaving now that it made the news?"

The scandal surrounding Gaetz is getting worse with each passing day. Earlier today, leaked text messages linked Gaetz to possibly attempting to get fake IDs. Another bombshell reports claims the Congressman showed photos of nude women to his co-workers, claiming he had slept with them. Both Nancy Pelosi and Kevin McCarthy and said that Gaetz should be kicked off his committee assignments if the allegations are true. Gaetz however, denies any wrongdoing.