House Ethics Committee Report Says Ex-GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz Paid For Sex & Used Drugs While In Congress
A report from the House Ethics Committee revealed that former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Florida) committed multiple violations, including paying for sex as well as paying for and using illicit drugs.
While Gaetz has denied all these violations, the 37-page report released on Monday includes vivid details of sex-filled parties and vacations, which he was involved in from 2017 to 2020 while representing Florida.
The findings in the new report determine that he broke various state laws connected to sexual misconduct while in office.
“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 notes.
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The Ethics Committee report noted that Gaetz “accepted gifts, including transportation and lodging in connection with a 2018 trip to the Bahamas, over permissible amounts.”
During that same year, investigators say that he arranged for his chief of staff to acquire a passport for a woman he was sexually involved with, falsely telling the State Department that she had been his constituent.
One of the final pieces of “substantial evidence” the committee gathered confirmed that the congressman “knowingly and willfully sought to impede and obstruct” the report.
The report contains various pages of exhibits, such as text messages, financial records, travel receipts, checks and online payments made by multiple people involved.
In some of the text exchanges, Gaetz seems to be inviting various women to events, getaways or parties and arranging airplane travel and lodging.
At one point, he asked one woman if she had a “cute black dress” to wear.
The report ends a nearly five-year investigation into Gaetz, who spent most of his time in Washington enduring scandals, which eventually ended his nomination as attorney general by President-elect Donald Trump.
Gaetz objected to the report’s release last week, saying that as a former House member, he would have “no opportunity to debate or rebut” the findings.
On Monday, Gaetz filed a lawsuit seeking to stop the release of the report, which he says consists of “untruthful and defamatory information” that would “significantly damage” his “standing and reputation in the community.”
The former Florida congressman’s complaint claims he is no longer under the committee’s jurisdiction because 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 had written in their request for a temporary restraining order.
In 2021, the Ethics Committee opened an investigation regarding accusations that Gaetz violated sex trafficking laws and had relations with an underage girl.
On Sept. 19, legal documents that had been filed and disclosed to the public in Florida claimed that the representative attended a party in 2017 that involved underage sex and drug use.
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