By Lisa Mascaro and Alanna Durkin Richer
Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — The House Ethics Committee’s long-awaited report on Matt Gaetz documents a trove of salacious allegations, including sex with an underage girl, that tanked the Florida Republican’s bid to lead the Justice Department.
Citing text messages, travel receipts, online payments and testimony, the bipartisan committee paints a picture of a lifestyle in which Gaetz and others connected with younger women for drug-fueled parties, events or trips, with the expectation the women would be paid for their participation.
The former congressman, who filed a last-minute lawsuit to try to block the report’s release Monday, slammed the committee’s findings. Gaetz has denied any wrongdoing and has insisted he never had sex with a minor. And a Justice Department investigation into the allegations ended without any criminal charges filed against him.
“Giving funds to someone you are dating — that they didn’t ask for — and that isn’t ‘charged’ for sex is now prostitution?!?” Gaetz wrote in one post Monday. “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.”
Here’s a look at some of the committee’s key findings:
‘Sex-for-money arrangements,’ drug-fueled parties and trips
The committee found that between 2017 and 2020, Gaetz paid tens of thousands of dollars to women “likely in connection with sexual activity and/or drug use.” He paid the women using through online services such as PayPal, Venmo and CashApp and with cash or check, the committee said.
The committee said it found evidence that Gaetz understood the “transactional nature” of his relationships with the women. The report points to one text exchange in which Gaetz balked at a woman’s request that he send her money, “claiming she only gave him a ‘drive by.'”
Women interviewed by the committee said there was a “general expectation of sex,” the report said. One woman who received more than $5,000 from Gaetz between 2018 and 2019 said that “99 percent of the time” that when she hung out with Gaetz “there was sex involved.”
However, Gaetz was in a long-term relationship with one of the women he paid, so “some of the payments may have been of a legitimate nature,” the committee said.
Text messages obtained by the committee also show that Gaetz would ask the women to bring drugs to their “rendezvous,” the report said.
While most of his encounters with the women were in Florida, the committee said Gaetz also traveled “on several occasions” with women whom he paid for sex. The report includes text message exchanges in which Gaetz appears to be inviting various women to events, getaways or parties, and arranging airplane travel and lodging.
Gaetz associate Joel Greenberg, who pleaded guilty to sex trafficking charges in 2021, initially connected with women through an online service.
In one text with a 20-year-old woman, Greenberg suggested if she had a friend, the four of them could meet up. The woman responded that she usually does “$400 per meet.” Greenberg replied: “He understands the deal,” along with a smiley face emoji. Greenberg asked if they were old enough to drink alcohol, and sent the woman a picture of Gaetz. The woman responded that her friend found him “really cute.”
“Well, he’s down here for only for the day, we work hard and play hard,” Greenberg replied.
‘Substantial evidence’ indicates that Gaetz had sex with an underage girl, the committee said
The report details a party in July 2017 in which Gaetz is accused of having sex with “multiple women, including the 17-year-old, for which they were paid.” The committee pointed to “credible testimony” from the now-woman herself as well as “multiple individuals” who corroborated the allegation.
The then-17-year-old — who had just completed her junior year in high school — told the committee that Gaetz paid her $400 in cash that night, “which she understood to be payment for sex,” according to the report. The woman acknowledged that she had taken ecstasy the night of the party, but told the committee that she was “certain” of her sexual encounters with the then-congressman.
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 he didn’t ask 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.
Gaetz said evidence would ‘exonerate’ him but provided none of it
In sum, the committee said it authorized 29 subpoenas for documents and testimony, reviewed nearly 14,000 documents and contacted more than two dozen witnesses.
But when the committee subpoenaed Gaetz for his testimony, he failed to comply.
“Gaetz pointed to evidence that would ‘exonerate’ him yet failed to produce any such materials,” the committee said. Gaetz “continuously sought to deflect, deter, or mislead the Committee in order to prevent his actions from being exposed.”
The report details a months-long process that dragged into a year as it sought information from Gaetz that he decried as “nosey” and a “weaponization” of government against him.
In one notable exchange, investigators were seeking information about the expenses for a 2018 getaway with multiple women to the Bahamas. Gaetz ultimately offered up his plane ticket receipt “to” the destination, but declined to share his return “from” the Bahamas.
The report said his return on a private plane and other expenses paid by an associate were in violation of House gift rules.
In another Gaetz told the committee he would “welcome” the opportunity to respond to written questions. Yet, after it sent a list of 16 questions, Gaetz said publicly he would “no longer” voluntarily cooperate.
He called the investigation “frivolous,” adding, “Every investigation into me ends the same way: my exoneration.”
The report said that while Gaetz’s obstruction of the investigation does not rise to a criminal violation it is inconsistent with the requirement that all members of Congress “act in a manner that reflects creditably upon the House.”
Justice Department didn’t cooperate with the committee
The committee began its review of Gaetz in April 2021 and deferred its work in response to a Justice Department request. It renewed its work shortly after Gaetz announced that the Justice Department had ended a sex trafficking investigation without filing any charges against him.
The committee sought records from the Justice Department about the probe, but the agency refused, saying it doesn’t disclose information about investigations that don’t result in charges.
The committee then subpoenaed the Justice Department, and after a back-and-forth between officials and the committee, the department 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.
Many of the women who the committee spoke to had already given statements to the Justice Department and didn’t want to “relive their experience,” the committee said. “They were particularly concerned with providing additional testimony about a sitting congressman in light of DOJ’s lack of action on their prior testimony,” the report said.
The Justice Department, however, never handed over the women’s statements. The agency’s lack of cooperation — along with its request that the committee pause its investigation — significantly delayed the committee’s probe, lawmakers said.