WASHINGTON − The House Ethics Committee found “substantial evidence” former Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., participated in “prostitution, statutory rape, illicit drug use” and obstruction of Congress in a long-awaited report on alleged misconduct by President-elect Donald Trump’s original choice for the next U.S. attorney general, according to a report released Monday.
Gaetz made a futile effort in federal court to prevent the release of the committee’s report into allegations that have dogged the Floridal Republican for years. Gaetz has strenuously denied sexually abusing a minor, and a Justice Department investigation produced no criminal charges.
“The record overwhelmingly suggests that Representative Gaetz had sex with multiple women” at a 2017 Florida party, “including the then-17-year-old, for which they were paid,” the report said.
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“Victim A recalled receiving $400 in cash from Representative Gaetz that evening, which she understood to be payment for sex,” the report said. “At the time, she had just completed her junior year of high school.”
That witness told the committee she had not informed Gaetz she was younger than 18, “nor did he ask her age,” the committee found.
Gaetz was among speakers who addressed the conservative Turning Point AmericaFest 2024 in Phoenix on Sunday ahead of Trump. He didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment.
In a post on X, Gaetz last week said he had sent money to girlfriends and women he dated, “even some I never dated but who asked,” and acknowledged he “probably partied, womanized, drank and smoked more than I should have” when he was younger.
But, he insisted, “I NEVER had sexual contact with someone under 18. Any claim that I have would be destroyed in court − which is why no such claim was ever made in court.”
On Monday, he asked a federal judge in Washington, D.C., to stop the Ethics Committee from releasing the report.
He accused the Ethics Committee of “unprecedented overreach that threatens fundamental constitutional rights and established procedural protections.”
The bipartisan committee voted in secret earlier this month to release the report over the objections of some Republicans.
The vote was an about-face for the committee, which had declined to release the report in November. After Gaetz resigned shortly after Trump nominated him to be U.S. Attorney General, the top law enforcement official in the nation and head of the Justice Department.
Trump had called Gaetz “a deeply gifted and tenacious attorney” who had “distinguished himself in Congress through his focus on achieving desperately needed reform at the Department of Justice.”
The 10-member Ethics Committee is equally divided between Republicans and Democrats and meets behind closed doors.
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Committee members previously had voted along party lines not to release their findings, which were based on a nearly four-year investigation.
House Democrats pushed to release the report even after Gaetz resigned from Congress and withdrew as Trump’s pick to lead the Justice Department.
Gaetz bowed out from consideration to be Trump’s attorney general in November, saying he wanted to avoid “a needlessly protracted Washington scuffle.”
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Republicans had insisted that because Gaetz was no longer in Congress, the report should remain confidential. It was not known which Republicans changed their vote in order to allow the report to be made public.
A vote on the House floor to force the release of the report also failed when virtually all GOP lawmakers voted against it. A particularly vocal opponent was Johnson Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., who said publishing the report would set a “terrible precedent.”
Ethics reports have been released previously after a member’s resignation but only rarely.
The Justice Department previously investigated Gaetz for potential sex trafficking but closed the inquiry without charges, his lawyers told USA TODAY in February 2023.
Gaetz said in his Wednesday post on X that he had been fully exonerated, though federal authorities have never explicitly said that.
Federal investigators established a web of payments among Gaetz and “dozens of friends and associates who are said to have taken part with him in drug-fueled sex parties,” according to a document obtained by The New York Times.
(This story has been updated with new information.)
