U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) listens to testimony during a U.S. House Judiciary Committee hearing titled “Undue Influence: Superior Court Operations and SCOTUS Politics,” examining allegations that which former anti-abortion leader Reverend Robert Schenck was said to have been informed of in advance. of the outcome of a major 2014 US Supreme Court case regarding contraceptives, authored by conservative Justice Samuel Alito, on Capitol Hill in Washington, US, December 8, 2022.
Evelyn Hockstein | Reuters
THE House Ethics Committee revealed Monday that it found “substantial evidence” that former Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz had sex with a 17-year-old girl in 2017 and that he “regularly” paid women for sex while he was in Congress.
The panel, in a final report during his years-long investigation into Gaetz, also revealed that he had used illegal drugs, including cocaine and ecstasy, on multiple occasions between 2017 and 2019.
Gaetz also accepted gifts, including a trip to the Bahamas in 2018, “in excess of authorized amounts,” the bipartisan committee concluded.
“Representative Gaetz acted in a manner that brought the House into disrepute,” the report said.
The committee said it found “substantial evidence that Rep. Gaetz violated the House Rules, state and federal laws, and other standards of conduct prohibiting prostitution, statutory rape, illegal drug use, acceptance of unauthorized gifts, granting of special favors and privileges and obstruction.” of Congress.”
But it didn’t find enough evidence that Gaetz violated a federal sex trafficking law, even though he “effectively caused the transportation of women across state lines for the purpose of the sex trade.” The committee said it found no evidence that these women were under 18 at the time of the trip, and it could not conclude that the “commercial sex acts were induced by force, fraud or coercion “.
An attorney for Gaetz did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment on the report. When the report was released, Gaetz, in a series of X-rated messages, denied engaging in prostitution or sex trafficking.
“There’s a reason they did this to me in a Christmas Eve report and not in a courtroom where I could present evidence and challenge witnesses,” Gaetz wrote in a post.
Hours before the release of the long-awaited report, Gaetz asked a federal judge to issue a temporary restraining order this would block its exit.
The ethics committee’s report, the end product of an investigation that began in 2021, has been at the center of a recent storm of controversy surrounding the former Florida lawmaker.
Gaetz, 42, resigned from Congress in mid-November, shortly after becoming president. Donald Trump chose him to be attorney general of the United States. Trump’s selection to lead the Justice Department immediately drew howls from critics, who were quick to note that Gaetz, if confirmed, would be in charge of the agency that had previously investigated him on allegations of sex trafficking.
THE Ministry of Justice terminated this investigation without filing criminal charges. But the ethics committee, which had suspended its own efforts while the DOJ’s version played out, reauthorized its investigation in May 2023.
When Gaetz left Congress, Republicans including Ethics Chairman Michael Guest, R-Miss., said he was no longer under the committee’s jurisdiction, casting doubt on his public release. report.
Press organizations reported as Gaetz’s departure came just two days before the ethics committee voted to release the report. The panel, composed equally of Democrats and Republicans, in an impasse on whether to share the report even though Gaetz is no longer a member of Congress.
But in a secret ballot on December 10, the committee decided that the report should be published.
Gaetz withdrew his candidacy for attorney general after just eight days as Trump’s choice, saying he was “unfairly becoming a distraction” to the Republican president-elect’s transition efforts.
He has denied any wrongdoing.
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