WASHINGTON (AP) — The House Ethics Committee on Monday accused Matt Gaetz of “regularly” paying for sex, including with a 17-year-old girl, and purchasing and using illicit drugs as a member of Congress, as lawmakers released the conclusions of a nearly four-year investigation that helped sink his nomination for attorney general.
The 37-page report by the bipartisan panel includes explicit details of sex-filled parties and vacations that Gaetz, now 42, took part in from 2017 to 2020 while representing Florida's western panhandle.
Congressional investigators concluded that Gaetz violated multiple state laws related to sexual misconduct while in office, though not federal sex trafficking laws. They also found that Gaetz “knowingly and willfully sought to impede and obstruct” the committee's work.
“The Committee determined there is substantial evidence that Representative Gaetz violated House Rules and other standards of conduct prohibiting prostitution, statutory rape, illicit drug use, impermissible gifts, special favors or privileges, and obstruction of Congress,” the report states.
Ahead of the report’s release Gaetz denied any wrongdoing and criticized the committee's process.
“Giving funds to someone you are dating — that they didn’t ask for — and that isn’t ‘charged’ for sex is now prostitution?!?” he posted on X, the website formerly known as Twitter. “There is a reason they did this to me in a Christmas Eve-Eve report and not in a courtroom of any kind where I could present evidence and challenge witnesses.”
Gaetz, a Republican first elected in 2017, spent the majority of his time in Washington enmeshed in scandals that ultimately derailed his nomination by President-elect Donald Trump as attorney general. His political future is uncertain, although Gaetz has indicated he would be interested in running for the open Senate seat in Florida.
Lawmakers paint a damning portrait of Gaetz's conduct, using dozens of pages of exhibits, including text messages and financial records, travel receipts, checks and online payments, to document a party- and drug-fueled lifestyle. The committee said it compiled the evidence after issuing 29 subpoenas for documents and testimony and contacting more than two dozen witnesses.
In addition to soliciting prostitution, the Ethics Committee report states that Gaetz “accepted gifts, including transportation and lodging in connection with a 2018 trip to the Bahamas, in excess of permissible amounts.”
That same year, investigators say Gaetz arranged for his chief of staff to obtain a passport for a woman he was sexually involved with, falsely telling the State Department that she was his constituent.
In some of the text exchanges, Gaetz appears to be inviting various women to events, getaways or parties, and arranging airplane travel and lodging. At one point he asks one woman if she has a “cute black dress” to wear. There are also discussions of shipping goods.
One of the exhibits is a text exchange that appears to be between two of the women concerned about their cash flow and payments. In another, a person asks Gaetz for help to pay an educational expense.
Regarding the 17-year-old girl, the report states there’s no evidence that Gaetz knew she was a minor when he had sex with her, the committee said. The woman told the committee she didn’t tell Gaetz she was under 18 at the time and that he didn’t know how old she was.
Rather, the committee said Gaetz learned she was a minor more than a month after the party. But he stayed in touch with her after that and met up with her for “commercial sex” again less than six months after she turned 18, according to the committee.
But Florida law, which states it is a felony for a person 24 or older to have sex with a minor, does not allow a claim of ignorance or misrepresentation of a minor's age as a defense.
Joel Leppard, who represents two women who told the committee that Gaetz paid them for sex, said the findings “vindicate” the accounts of his clients and “demonstrate their credibility.”
“We appreciate the Committee’s commitment to transparency in releasing this comprehensive report so the truth can be known,” Leppard said in a statement.
At least one Republican joined all five Democrats on the Ethics Committee earlier this month in voting to release the report about their former colleague despite initial opposition from GOP lawmakers, including House Speaker Mike Johnson, to publishing findings about a former member of Congress.
While ethics reports have previously been released after a member’s resignation, it is extremely rare.
On behalf of the Republicans who voted against releasing the report, Rep. Michael Guest of Mississippi, Ethics chairman, wrote that while the members do not challenge the report's findings, “we take great exception that the majority deviated from the Committee’s well-established standards,” to drop any investigation when a person is not longer a member of the chamber.
“We believe that operating outside the jurisdictional bounds set forth by House Rules and Committee standards, especially when making public disclosures, is a dangerous departure with potentially catastrophic consequences,” Guest wrote.
Mounting a last-ditch effort to halt the publication of the report, Gaetz filed a lawsuit Monday asking a court to intervene, citing what he called “untruthful and defamatory information” that would “significantly damage” his “standing and reputation in the community.” Gaetz’s complaint argues he’s no longer under the committee’s jurisdiction since he resigned from Congress.
“The Committee’s position that it may nonetheless publish potentially defamatory findings about a private citizen over whom it claims no jurisdiction represents an unprecedented expansion of Congressional power that threatens fundamental constitutional rights and established procedural protections,” Gaetz’s lawyers wrote in their request for a temporary restraining order.
The often secretive, bipartisan panel has investigated claims against Gaetz since 2021. But its work became more urgent last month when Trump picked him shortly after Election Day as his first choice to be the nation's top law enforcement officer. Gaetz resigned from Congress that same day, putting him outside the purview of the Ethics Committee's jurisdiction.
But Democrats had pressed to make the report public even after Gaetz was no longer a member and had withdrawn as Trump’s pick to lead the Justice Department. A vote on the House floor this month to force the report’s release failed; all but one Republican voted against it.
The committee detailed its start-and-stop investigation over the past several years, which was halted for a time as the Justice Department conducted its own probe of Gaetz. Federal prosecutors never brought a case against him.
Lawmakers said they asked the Justice Department for information about its probe, but the agency refused to hand over information, saying it doesn’t disclose information about investigations that don’t result in charges.
The committee then subpoenaed the Justice Department for records, but after a back-and-forth between Justice Department officials and the committee, the department only handed over “publicly reported information about the testimony of a deceased individual,” according to the report.
“To date, DOJ has provided no meaningful evidence or information to the Committee or cited any lawful basis for its responses,” the committee said.
In releasing the report, the panel added that Gaetz was also “uncooperative" throughout the probe. He provided “minimal documentation” in response to the committee’s requests, it said. “He also did not agree to a voluntary interview.”
FILE - Then-Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., appears before the House Rules Committee at the Capitol in Washington, Friday, Sept. 22, 2023. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)
Former Rep. Matt Gaetz, R- Fla., speaks at AmericaFest, Sunday, Dec. 22, 2024, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Rick Scuteri)
