Matt Gaetz paid thousands for drugs and sex, U.S. House panel finds
CBC
The U.S. 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.
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."
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-fuelled 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 with whom he was sexually involved, 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.
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.
