A yearslong Home Ethics Committee investigation into former Rep. Matt Gaetz discovered “substantial proof” that the Florida Republican dedicated statutory rape, solicited prostitutes and used unlawful medication, in line with a replica of the report obtained by POLITICO.
The report’s most explosive allegation, which Gaetz has lengthy denied, is that he had intercourse twice with a 17-year-old lady at a celebration in July 2017, when he was 35 and serving within the Home. Ethics Committee investigators discovered that he later paid the lady — a part of a pattern specified by the report of him paying girls after sexual encounters.
Gaetz has repeatedly denied that he broke any legal guidelines. “These claims could be destroyed in court docket — which is why they have been by no means made in any court docket in opposition to me,” he informed POLITICO Friday morning.
However the committee’s 37-page report, which it determined to launch in a secret vote earlier this month, alleges a number of situations of unlawful conduct by President-elect Donald Trump’s one-time choose to function lawyer normal. Gaetz withdrew from consideration as Trump’s AG final month because the potential public launch of the investigation weighed on his possibilities of Senate affirmation.
“The Committee concluded there was substantial proof that Consultant Gaetz violated Home Guidelines, state and federal legal guidelines, and different requirements of conduct prohibiting prostitution, statutory rape, illicit drug use, acceptance of impermissible items, the supply of particular favors and privileges, and obstruction of Congress,” the ethics panel mentioned in its report, including that he “knowingly and willfully sought to impede and hinder” the investigation.
The findings are poised to set off shockwaves in Republican politics, partly due to Gaetz’s shut ties to Trump. Gaetz, who resigned from Congress when Trump tapped him to steer the Justice Division, has been floated as a possible Florida governor candidate in 2026, and a few Republicans consider he might nonetheless win an appointment within the second Trump administration. Gaetz on Sunday additionally publicly mulled working for Sen. Marco Rubio’s (R-Fla.) seemingly soon-to-be vacant seat. The report’s findings might make Gaetz’s political future tough, although Trump has a historical past of dismissing accusations of felony conduct in opposition to his allies.
The Ethics Committee investigation didn’t discover “enough proof” to indicate that Gaetz violated federal intercourse trafficking legal guidelines — an accusation that the Justice Division had additionally investigated. The DOJ didn’t cost Gaetz.
Gaetz has expressed remorse that he as soon as partied closely and mistreated girls and has mentioned he is a unique individual now. In response to accusations that he slept with somebody underneath 18, he has said “unequivocally no.”
Along with allegations of sexual misconduct and drug use, the Ethics investigation discovered that Gaetz violated Home guidelines by accepting extreme items, together with transportation and lodging, in reference to a 2018 journey to the Bahamas. It additionally alleges that Gaetz violated one other ethics rule in 2018 when he organized for his prime staffer to help “a girl with whom he engaged in sexual exercise in acquiring a passport, falsely indicating to the U.S. Division of State that she was a constituent.”
The Ethics Committee’s determination to launch the report — a transfer that required a majority vote by a panel break up evenly between Republicans and Democrats — is controversial inside the Home. Members of the committee and different lawmakers, together with Speaker Mike Johnson, argued that the panel shouldn’t break with its common observe of ending an inquiry after a member leaves the Home. However a majority of panel members concluded it was nonetheless “within the public curiosity to launch its findings.”
The discharge of the report means not less than one Republican on the panel sided with Democrats in a secret vote. Gaetz has various enemies within the chamber, notably after he spearheaded the ouster of former Speaker Kevin McCarthy. Gaetz blamed the previous speaker for the Ethics probe that launched in April 2021, although the Floridian has denied that’s why he moved besides McCarthy. And McCarthy, on the time, argued he had no management over the interior probe.
The statutory rape allegations
At a celebration in July 2017 at a Florida lobbyist’s dwelling, Gaetz had intercourse twice with a 17-year-old, who had simply accomplished her junior 12 months of highschool, in line with the report. Florida’s age of consent is eighteen.
Within the testimony of the now 24-year-old girl, known as “Sufferer A,” she mentioned that she had intercourse with Gaetz at “least as soon as within the presence of different social gathering attendees” and that she acquired $400 in money from Gaetz, which she understood as a cost for intercourse. The girl additionally testified that she had ingested ecstasy earlier than the sexual encounter and mentioned that Gaetz used cocaine that very same night time as nicely.
Ethics investigators acquired proof that Gaetz was unaware that Sufferer A was underage “till greater than a month after their first sexual encounters” however famous that “statutory rape is a strict legal responsibility crime” — which means it’s unlawful whether or not he was conscious of her age or not. Even after he realized that she was a minor, Gaetz stored in touch along with her after which once more “met up along with her once more for industrial intercourse” lower than six months after she turned 18, the report alleges.
Investigators mentioned they heard from the 17-year-old lady in query in addition to “a number of people corroborating the allegation,” together with some who’ve testified underneath oath. And it discovered that whereas Gaetz has denied wrongdoing, he has additionally “refused to reply particular questions regarding his interactions with Sufferer A.”
The panel additionally notes that whereas the statute of limitations to convey state regulation fees in opposition to Gaetz has handed, those self same time limitations don’t apply to the panel’s findings.
Prostitution accusations
Gaetz later boasted that he had slept with a number of girls on the identical social gathering the place he allegedly had intercourse with the 17-year-old lady, in line with testimony the panel acquired from Joel Greenberg, one in all Gaetz’s associates on the time. And it was not the one occasion when he paid girls after sexual encounters, in line with the report.
Greenberg would meet youthful girls on SeekingArrangement.com, a web site a number of girls informed the committee was used to attach with potential purchasers who would pay for companionship or intercourse. The ladies would then usually attend events at Greenberg’s invitation and infrequently interact in intercourse, getting compensated afterward.
“The Committee heard testimony from over half a dozen witnesses who attended events, occasions, and journeys with Consultant Gaetz from 2017-2020. Practically each younger girl that the Committee interviewed confirmed that she was paid for intercourse by, or on behalf of, Consultant Gaetz,” the report reads.
Some girls additionally testified that they witnessed Gaetz take illicit medication, together with cocaine or ecstasy.
In a single case, the report particulars a girl asking Gaetz for monetary assist paying her tuition when she was 21. Gaetz agreed and requested her to fulfill him at a lodge room so he might hand her a test, which she discovered “attention-grabbing” as a result of he had usually used Venmo. When she arrived, Gaetz was there with Greenberg and a 20-year-old girl, who she had not anticipated to be there. She testified that there was an “expectation” of a “sexual encounter,” and the 4 of them had intercourse. Afterward, Gaetz handed her a $750 test with “tuition reimbursement” written on the memo line.
“The 21-year-old girl informed the Committee she believed that the encounter ‘might doubtlessly be a type of coercion as a result of I actually wanted the cash,’” the report reads.
The report states that every one the ladies who testified described their sexual encounters with Gaetz as consensual, however the panel provides that there was “an exploitative energy imbalance” at occasions. Investigators accused him of taking “benefit of the financial vulnerability of younger girls to lure them into sexual exercise for which they acquired a mean of some hundred {dollars} after every encounter.” And the ladies mentioned that Gaetz guilted them into sleeping with him or Greenberg at varied occasions. One girl testified that she feels “violated” when she displays on their encounter.
The committee additionally had documented proof that Gaetz paid the ladies, together with from “varied peer-to-peer digital cost companies,” like Venmo, in addition to checks and money. It additionally discovered that Greenberg would typically pay the ladies for having intercourse with Gaetz and Gaetz would later reimburse him. The committee discovered Gaetz paid over $90,000 to 12 girls between 2017 to 2020, not together with his funds to Greenberg.
In a single case, one of many girls Greenberg met on SeekingArrangement.com and launched to Gaetz in or round March 2017 later grew to become Gaetz’s girlfriend. The report mentioned they’d an open relationship, and that she not solely participated in sexual encounters with different girls concerned in sex-for-money preparations, however she additionally acted “as an middleman between Consultant Gaetz and the ladies he paid for intercourse.”
This then-girlfriend invoked her Fifth Modification proper in opposition to self-incrimination in response to a number of questions, together with the aim of particular funds and whether or not Gaetz ever paid her cash for intercourse. She was paid greater than $60,000 {dollars} all through their relationship, however the panel notes this doesn’t embody the $50,025 Gaetz paid her attorneys on the outset of the Justice Division’s investigation.
The committee famous that a few of the funds to this one particular person could also be “official in nature,” however based mostly on assertion of her rights to different “proof acquired from different sources, the Committee discovered substantial purpose to consider that almost all of those funds have been for such exercise.”
The panel notes it was unable to interview each girl who acquired funds and was suspected of being a part of the pay-for-sex preparations. Some expressed worry of “retaliation or have been unwilling to voluntarily relive their interactions with Consultant Gaetz.”
The Bahamas Journey
A visit to the Bahamas, the place Gaetz joined two different males who have been reportedly linked to the medical marijuana trade and 6 girls, was a spotlight of the Justice Division’s investigation into human trafficking. Whereas the Ethics Committee report didn’t discover proof of these accusations, investigators discovered different points with the journey.
The panel accused Gaetz of evading sharing documentation to show he paid for his a part of the lodging and a personal flight for the September 2018 journey. Accepting any of that as a “reward” would violate Home guidelines.
“Opposite to Consultant Gaetz’s claims that he supplied ‘substantial’ proof to the Committee ‘demonstrating his innocence’ on this allegation, he supplied no proof exhibiting how he paid for any journey prices aside from his flight to the Bahamas, regardless of being given a number of alternatives to take action,” the report reads.
This was one in all a number of circumstances the place the committee mentioned it discovered Gaetz “uncooperative.” The report says he supplied “minimal documentation” in response to its document requests and blew off requests for each a voluntary interview and a subpoena for his testimony on July 11.
The committee concludes that Gaetz’s “makes an attempt to mislead and deter the Committee from investigating him implicated federal felony legal guidelines regarding false statements and obstruction of Congress. Even when Consultant Gaetz’s obstructive conduct on this investigation didn’t rise to the extent of a felony violation, it was definitely inconsistent with the requirement that Members act in a fashion that displays creditably upon the Home.”
Blaming the Justice Division for delays
The panel famous its report was delayed as a result of Justice Division attorneys requested them to defer to their felony probe, as is customary observe. After prosecutors concluded their probe with no fees, the Ethics Committee mentioned they then didn’t cooperate with any data requests.
“DOJ’s preliminary deferral request and subsequent lack of cooperation with the Committee’s evaluate brought about vital delays within the investigation; these delays have been compounded by Consultant Gaetz’s obstructive efforts,” the report reads.
The panel spends a number of pages of the report detailing its efforts to get the DOJ to show over data. However regardless of a number of requests and even a subpoena looking for what the committee described as “particularized calls for” — together with “any exculpatory proof” — they are saying prosecutors stored citing a non-legal foundation that it doesn’t launch “private details about regulation enforcement investigations that don’t end in fees.”
The panel usually doesn’t launch its findings after a member leaves the Home, because it famous within the report. However leaning on previous precedent, the panel’s report mentioned it “decided that it was within the public curiosity to launch its findings even after a Member’s resignation from Congress,” whereas noting it did “not accomplish that flippantly.”
