Washington Matt Gaetz, a Republican from Florida, was charged by the House Ethics Committee on Monday with routinely obtaining and using illegal narcotics, as well as paying for sex, including with a 17-year-old girl, while serving in Congress.
Gaetz has refuted any misconduct.
The bipartisan panel’s 37-page report has specifics about the sexy parties and trips that Gaetz, now 42, attended while serving as the representative for Florida’s western panhandle from 2017 to 2020. According to the results, throughout his time in office, he broke several state statutes pertaining to sexual misconduct.
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 spent most of his tenure in Washington embroiled in scandals, which ultimately ruined his candidacy as attorney general by President-elect Donald Trump. The study concludes a nearly five-year probe into Gaetz. Despite Gaetz’s recent indication that he would be interested in running for the available Senate seat in Florida, his political future remains uncertain.
Despite early resistance from GOP lawmakers, including House Speaker Mike Johnson, to publishing findings about a former member of Congress, at least one Republican joined the five Democrats on the panel earlier this month in a covert vote to release the long-awaited report about their former colleague.
Although ethics findings have occasionally been made public following a member’s resignation, this is incredibly uncommon. Gaetz protested its release last week, claiming that as a former House member, he would not have a chance to discuss or refute the results.
Gaetz filed a lawsuit on Monday to prevent the report’s publication, claiming it contains false and defamatory facts that would seriously harm his reputation and position in the community. According to Gaetz’s complaint, the committee no longer has jurisdiction over him because he resigned from Congress.
Gaetz’s attorneys wrote in their request for a temporary restraining order that the Committee’s stance that it may still publish potentially defamatory findings about a private citizen over whom it asserts no jurisdiction amounts to an unprecedented extension of Congressional power that jeopardizes established procedural protections and fundamental constitutional rights.
According to the Ethics Committee findings, Gaetz solicited prostitution and accepted gifts in excess of what was allowed, including hotel and transportation, related to a 2018 trip to the Bahamas.
In the same year, investigators claim he lied to the State Department about a lady he had a sexual relationship with in order to get his chief of staff to get her a passport. Gaetz intentionally and consciously attempted to obstruct and hinder the report, according to one of the last significant pieces of evidence the committee collected.
Numerous pages of evidence are included in the report, including financial records, text conversations, travel receipts, cheques, and online payments made by the various parties involved. In several of the text messages, Gaetz seems to be setting up lodging and airfare, as well as inviting different ladies to events, retreats, or parties. He once asked a woman if she had a stylish black outfit she would like to wear. The topic of shipping goods is also discussed.
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, someone approaches Gaetz for assistance in covering a cost of college.
The often secretive, bipartisan panel has investigated claims against Gaetz since 2021. However, 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.
But Democrats had pressed to make the report public even after Gaetz was no longer a member and hadwithdrawn as Trump s pickto lead the Justice Department. A vote on the House floor this month to force the report s release failed; all but one Republican voted against it.
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