Kyrsten Sinema’s ex sends 22 paintings for a swim — and somehow blames Gaza

BS BULLETIN:

Former Sen. Kyrsten Sinema’s ex-boyfriend and former bodyguard is accused of causing more than $200,000 in damage at her Arizona home.
Police say Matthew Ammel threw roughly 22 paintings into her swimming pool after she refused his demand to post a video on X.
Now Ammel says his mental breakdown was fueled in part by frustration over Gaza and Sinema’s relationship with a major AI software developer.

Just when the Kyrsten Sinema bodyguard-boyfriend saga appeared to have exhausted every possible plot twist, Gaza entered the chat.

Matthew Ammel, Sinema’s former bodyguard and romantic partner, was arrested this month after authorities said he caused more than $200,000 worth of damage at the former senator’s Cave Creek, Arizona, home.

According to court documents, Ammel contacted Sinema while she was away on Aug. 30 and demanded that she post a video to her X account.

When she refused, investigators say Ammel threatened to damage one of her paintings every 10 minutes until she complied.

He apparently was not bluffing.

Deputies said roughly 22 paintings were pulled from the walls and thrown into Sinema’s swimming pool. Another painting was spray-painted, expensive bottles of alcohol were smashed and additional damage was done inside the home. Authorities valued the paintings alone at $123,015.

Total damage was estimated at more than $200,000.

Ammel has now offered more explanation for what happened.

He told The Arizona Republic that he suffered a mental breakdown and said part of his disillusionment involved Sinema’s relationship with a major U.S. artificial-intelligence software developer while the war in Gaza continued. The newspaper’s reporting on that interview was highlighted by Twitchy on Wednesday.

And that sentence was enough to send social media into orbit.

“What the hell did I just read,” one reaction said.

Another marveled that “at no point” could the writer predict where the sentence was going next.

“I know it’s said a lot but we really are running out of new sentences,” another person wrote.

One response simply called it a “contender for sentence of the year.”

Others focused on the attempt to connect the destructive episode to politics.

Former Obama speechwriter Tommy Vietor, who made clear he was no Sinema fan, called Ammel’s explanation “comically ridiculous spin.”

Then came perhaps the most appropriately Washington response of all: “I am anti-throwing art into swimming pools. I think my record has been pretty rock solid on that. HOWEVER.”

Twitchy summed up the collective reaction with plenty of sarcasm of its own, portraying the Gaza explanation as yet another layer in an already deeply strange story.

Ammel has acknowledged damaging the property while describing his behavior as the result of extreme stress and a mental-health crisis. He faces a felony criminal-damage charge.

The episode comes as Sinema is separately fighting a lawsuit filed by Ammel’s ex-wife under North Carolina’s alienation-of-affection law. Sinema has acknowledged that her relationship with Ammel became romantic and intimate in 2024 but disputes claims made against her in the civil case.