According to the House Ethics Committee’s final report on its investigation of former Representative Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., he engaged in a number of behaviors that violated House Rules and several that would have been considered state-level crimes.
Following a protracted investigation, the committee released its 42-page report Monday morning.
According to the report, the Committee found strong evidence that Representative Gaetz had broken House Rules and other conduct standards that forbid prostitution, statutory rape, illegal drug use, unlawful gifts, special favors or privileges, and obstruction of Congress.
Gaetz has denied any impropriety on numerous occasions, and he denied paying for sex in a series of posts on X on Monday. According to the committee’s report, he disregarded its probe and frequently failed to provide the needed pertinent material on time or at all.
Days before the report was scheduled to be released to the public and after President-elect Donald Trump named him his choice for attorney general, Gaetz resigned from his position last month. After additional information regarding the Ethics Committee’s probe and other accusations surfaced, Gaetzwith abandoned his bid.
In a statement following the report’s release on Monday, Ethics Committee Chair Michael Guest, R-Miss., stated that he did not vote to disclose the Gaetz report, even though he does not dispute the Committee’s conclusions.
He remarked, “The Committee’s long-standing practice is broken by the decision to publish a report after his resignation. This is a risky departure with potentially disastrous consequences.”
Requests for comment from the office of House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Trump’s transition team were not immediately answered.
A Democratic member of the Ethics Committee, Rep. Glenn Ivey of Maryland, said in an interview Monday on MSNBC that the committee’s purpose is “to make sure our members know what they can do, what they can t do, what crosses the line and what doesn t. Therefore, I believe that the report’s release offers direction in that regard.
“We ve got a lot of people who are concerned about Congress, cynical about Washington and the like,” he said. “I think it s important for us to be able to show that we are trying to keep our own House in order in this way.”
The committee presented a great amount of evidence that demonstrates Gaetz routinely had sex with women while serving as a member of Congress and paying them large sums of money. Investigators for the committee reported that during the four years from 2017 to 2020, they tracked over $90,000 to 12 women. The committee came to the conclusion that the payments were probably related to drug usage or sexual activities.
The committee said that while Gaetz has repeatedly denied ever having paid for sex, when he was given the opportunity to put that claim in writing, Gaetz refused to respond, asserting that asking about [his] sexual history as a single man with adult women is a bridge too far.
The committee said that it heard testimony from more than a half-dozen witnesses who attended parties, events and trips with Gaetz from 2017 to 2020 and that nearly every young woman that the Committee interviewed confirmed that she was paid for sex by, or on behalf of, Representative Gaetz.”
According to the report, at least one woman believed that drug use during the parties and events she attended might have hindered her ability to fully consent or truly understand what was happening, even though all of the women the Committee spoke with said their sexual encounters with Representative Gaetz were consensual. Indeed, nearly every woman that the Committee spoke with could not remember the details of at least one or more of the events they attended with Representative Gaetz and attributed that to drug or alcohol consumption.
Two women told the committee that Gaetz had paid them for sex, including a woman who said he paid a woman for sex at a small, invitation-only party in Florida, where prostitution is illegal, in 2017 while he was a member of the House, their lawyer told NBC News. At the time, those women were of legal age.
Attorney Joel Leppard, who represents the two women who testified before the House Ethics Committee, told NBC News in a statement, “My clients gave important testimony to the Committee at significant personal cost. The Committee’s detailed findings and extensive investigation validate their accounts and show their credibility.” Their testimony, supported by extensive documentation and corroborating witnesses, has now been validated through this comprehensive investigation. We appreciate the Committee s commitment to transparency in releasing this report so the truth can be known.”
The report also detailsa sexual encounterGaetz was alleged to have had with a woman who was a junior in high school at the same party. The woman testified before the committee that she had sex with Gaetz twice at the party in 2017, when she was 17. She also claimed to have received money from Gaetz, then in Congress, that she perceived to be a payment for sex.
The Committee received testimony that Victim A and Representative Gaetz had sex twice during the party, including at least once in the presence of other party attendees. Victim A recalled receiving $400 in cash from Representative Gaetz that evening, which she understood to be payment for sex. At the time, she had just completed her junior year of high school, the report reads.
The woman acknowledged that she was under the influence of ecstasy during her sexual encounters with Representative Gaetz at the July 15, 2017, party, and recalled seeing Representative Gaetz use cocaine at that party, the committee said.
The woman told the committee that she didn t tell Gaetz she was underage, and the committee also said it didn t discover any evidence that Gaetz knew he was having sex with a minor.
While the committee concluded that Gaetz may be in violation of several state laws, it said that it didn t obtain substantial evidence that he violated federal sex trafficking laws. Gaetz was the subject of a lengthy criminal investigation by the Justice Department, but prosecutors chose not to bring charges.
The Justice Department declined to comment on the committee s report. Gaetz has claimed that the Justice Department exonerated him, but declining to bring charges isn t the same as exonerating someone.
A senior Justice Department official told NBC News that the decision not to bring charges was made by career prosecutors, not Attorney General Merrick Garland or other Justice Department leaders.
The official pointed out that bringing charges and prosecuting and proving a case in court is much different from a committee investigation. Addressing the federal sex trafficking allegations, the senior official said the Justice Department would have brought charges if it thought it had a winning case.
Florida Statewide Prosecutor Nick Cox declined to comment on the allegations and referred NBC News to local enforcement authorities.
Allegations of violations of state criminal law would be investigated by law enforcement in the appropriate jurisdiction, such as a local police department, sheriff s office or the Florida Department of Law Enforcement,” Cox said. “To determine if the agencies in the relevant jurisdictions have received information from the House Ethics Committee or have initiated investigations, you would need to contact those law enforcement agencies directly. Single-circuit crimes would be prosecuted by the state attorney where the crime occurred.”
A spokesperson for Washington, D.C, Attorney General Brian Schwalb declined to comment.
The report goes into detail about a trip Gaetz took to the Bahamas with two men and six women in 2018. The committee said it believed the trip violated House gift rules, citing the testimony of a woman who described it as payment for sex. The committee said that Gaetz engaged in sexual activity with several women on the trip and that several women on the trip recalled that he appeared to be under the influence of drugs and that they took ecstasy.
The committee said it found that Gaetz used cocaine, ecstasy and marijuana and says there was ample evidence that Gaetz appeared to have set up a pseudonymous e-mail account from his House office in the Capitol complex for the purpose of purchasing marijuana.
The panel said he also used the power of his office to assist a woman he was engaged in a sexual relationship with to obtain an expedited passport, with his chief of staff falsely claiming she was his constituent.
Earlier Monday, in an attempt to prevent the report s release,Gaetz sought a temporary restraining orderagainst the committee and its chair, calling for an injunction that would prevent its release.
The Committee s apparent intention to release its report after explicitly acknowledging it lacks jurisdiction over former members, its failure to follow constitutional notions of due process, and failure to adhere to its own procedural rules and precedent represents an unprecedented overreach that threatens fundamental constitutional rights and established procedural protections,” his lawyers said.
Before the report was released, Gaetz had repeatedly denied any wrongdoing, noting that a separate Justice Department probe into allegations of sex trafficking ended with no charges.
Gaetz has repeatedly denied paying for sex or having sex with anyone underage.
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, Gaetzwrote in a lengthy post on Xlast week. 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. 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, he added.
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