House
Ethics Panel Report Accuses Gaetz of ‘Regularly’ Paying for Sex and Using Drugs
The Florida
Republican resigned from the House and withdrew as Donald J. Trump’s attorney
general pick in the weeks before the report’s release.
Luke
BroadwaterMaggie HabermanRobert Draper
By Luke
BroadwaterMaggie Haberman and Robert Draper
Reporting
from the Capitol
Dec. 23,
2024
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/23/us/politics/gaetz-house-ethics-report.html
The House
Ethics Committee said on Monday that its lengthy investigation had found that
former Representative Matt Gaetz, Republican of Florida, President-elect Donald
J. Trump’s initial choice for attorney general, had regularly paid women for
sex, had sex with an underage girl and used illegal drugs.
The report
was released weeks after Mr. Gaetz withdrew from consideration to be the
nation’s chief law enforcement officer and resigned from Congress, and after
years in which he had spawned enemies on both sides of the aisle with his
bellicose political style.
Mr. Gaetz
has denied any wrongdoing.
The panel
found that from at least 2017 to 2020, Mr. Gaetz “regularly paid women for
engaging in sexual activity with him.” The report said that in 2017, Mr. Gaetz
had “engaged in sexual activity with a 17-year-old girl,” who was paid.
From 2017 to
2019, the report said, Mr. Gaetz used or possessed illegal drugs, including
cocaine and Ecstasy “on multiple occasions,” and accepted lavish gifts,
including transportation to and lodging in the Bahamas, in excess of
permissible amounts.
“Representative
Gaetz has acted in a manner that reflects discreditably upon the House,” the
report stated.
The Ethics
Committee concluded that Mr. Gaetz violated state sexual misconduct laws,
including Florida’s statutory rape law, and violated House rules concerning
gifts and misuse of his official office.
However, the
committee said it did not find conclusive evidence that Mr. Gaetz violated
federal sex trafficking laws.
“Although
Representative Gaetz did cause the transportation of women across state lines
for purposes of commercial sex, the committee did not find evidence that any of
those women were under 18 at the time of travel, nor did the committee find
sufficient evidence to conclude that the commercial sex acts were induced by
force, fraud, or coercion,” the panel wrote.
The Justice
Department had conducted its own extensive investigation of the allegations
about Mr. Gaetz, but disclosed nearly two years ago that it would not bring
charges after prosecutors decided that they could not make a strong enough case
in court.
But the
House panel, under Republican leadership, proceeded with its inquiry, and the
release of its report ended a contentious debate over whether its findings
should be made public. Mr. Gaetz’s resignation from the House meant that the
panel no longer had jurisdiction, and the report made clear that the
committee’s Republican chairman objected to its release.
“While we do
not challenge the committee’s findings, we take great exception that the
majority deviated from the committee’s well-established standards and voted to
release a report on an individual no longer under the committee’s jurisdiction,
an action the committee has not taken since 2006,” the chairman, Representative
Michael Guest, Republican of Mississippi, wrote.
Mr. Gaetz
mounted a last-ditch effort to block the report’s release on Monday, filing an
emergency motion in Federal District Court in Washington. But shortly after he
did, the court clerk posted a note online telling him he had filed it
improperly.
“This case
will not proceed any further until all errors are satisfied,” the note read.
When that
effort failed, Mr. Gaetz began posting on social media, arguing he was being
unfairly maligned.
“Giving
funds to someone you are dating — that they didn’t ask for — and that isn’t
‘charged’ for sex is now prostitution?!?” he wrote on X. “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.”
Last week,
Mr. Gaetz denied some of the central allegations against him, including that he
had paid an underage girl for sex and solicited prostitutes, dismissing them as
a distortion of youthful indiscretions.
“In my
single days, I often sent funds to women I dated — even some I never dated but
who asked. I dated several of these women for years. I NEVER had sexual contact
with someone under 18,” he wrote, adding: “My 30’s were an era of working very
hard — and playing hard too. It’s embarrassing, though not criminal, that I
probably partied, womanized, drank and smoked more than I should have earlier
in life. I live a different life now.”
On Saturday,
Mr. Gaetz was already fund-raising off the news of the report’s release.
“After the
House Ethics Committee committed to not releasing their report on me, the
Uniparty Traitors have gone back on their word and plan to attempt to take me
down with their sham witch-hunt report,” he wrote in a solicitation email. “I’m
about to get into the fight of my life, and I need your help ASAP.”
Mr. Gaetz
resigned from Congress on the day last month that Mr. Trump tapped him to lead
the Justice Department, but the news soon leaked that the secretive House
Ethics Committee was poised to release its long-awaited investigation into Mr.
Gaetz’s conduct. As Senate opposition rose against his selection, Mr. Gaetz
withdrew his name from consideration for attorney general.
He is now
set to join the conservative One America News Network as an anchor in January.
The House
panel interviewed more than a dozen witnesses, issued 29 subpoenas and reviewed
nearly 14,000 documents.
The
committee said in June that it was continuing to investigate the allegations
that Mr. Gaetz may have engaged in sexual misconduct and illicit drug use,
accepted improper gifts, dispensed special privileges and favors to individuals
with whom he had a personal relationship, and sought to obstruct government
investigations of his conduct.
It said it
was closing its inquiry into allegations that Mr. Gaetz may have shared
inappropriate images or videos on the House floor, misused state identification
records, converted campaign funds to personal use, and accepted a bribe or
improper gratuity.
After Mr.
Trump made public his plans to choose Mr. Gaetz as attorney general, senators
in both parties quickly called on the committee to release its findings.
Representative
Glenn Ivey, Democrat of Maryland and a member of the Ethics Committee, said he
believed it was important the report be released so that the public could see
the evidence the panel collected and reach its own conclusions.
“It doesn’t
reflect favorably on Donald Trump’s vetting process,” Mr. Ivey said of the pick
of Mr. Gaetz for attorney general. “I think it makes it very clear that the
Senate should be very careful and concerned when it moves forward with
confirmation hearings on the nominees. The Gaetz incident, I think, shows that
there was no vetting that took place.”
The report
released Monday focuses on events that began in 2017, when, shortly after Mr.
Gaetz was sworn into office, he became friendly with Joel Greenberg, a county
tax collector in Florida.
Mr.
Greenberg and Mr. Gaetz frequently attended parties and other gatherings with
young women in attendance, the report stated. Many of those women were
initially contacted by Mr. Greenberg via the website SeekingArrangement.com,
which advertised itself as a “sugar dating” website that primarily connected
older men and younger women seeking “mutually beneficial relationships.”
The website
was generally understood by many of the women interviewed by the committee to
involve, at minimum, an exchange of companionship for money, the report stated.
“Many of the
women interviewed by the committee were clear that there was a general
expectation of sex,” the report stated, adding that one woman who testified to
the committee and was paid more than $5,000 by Mr. Gaetz said that sex was
involved “99 percent of the time.”
The
committee interviewed several of the women involved with Mr. Gaetz, all of whom
described the encounters as consensual but in some cases described considerable
drug and alcohol use.
“The women
also discussed instances where Representative Gaetz would try to convince them
to have sex with him or Mr. Greenberg,” the report said.
Luke
Broadwater covers Congress with a focus on congressional investigations. More
about Luke Broadwater
Maggie
Haberman is a senior political correspondent reporting on the 2024 presidential
campaign, down ballot races across the country and the investigations into
former President Donald J. Trump. More about Maggie Haberman
Robert
Draper is based in Washington and writes about domestic politics. He is the
author of several books and has been a journalist for three decades. More about
Robert Draper
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