The House Ethics Committee found "substantial evidence" that former Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz paid women — including a 17-year-old girl — for sex and used illegal drugs while in Congress, according to a long-awaited report that was released on Monday.
Gaetz resigned from Congress in November after President-elect Donald Trump nominated him to serve as attorney general. However, he withdrew his name from consideration as details from the report — the product of the committee's three-year investigation — began to trickle out and he lost support from the Senate.
What is the House ethics report — and what does it reveal?
The House inquiry, which began in April 2021, was triggered by the news that Gaetz was the subject of a Justice Department probe into allegations that he had sex with a 17-year-old girl and broke sex-trafficking laws by transporting her over state lines. Gaetz has denied any wrongdoing, and the Justice Department ended its investigation last year without bringing charges.
House investigators wrote in the 42-page report: "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."
Earlier this month, the House Ethics Committee voted in secret to release the report to the public. Gaetz filed a lawsuit to stop the report’s release, saying it contains “untruthful and defamatory information.”
House Ethics Committee report on former Rep. Matt Gaetz by Nicole Darrah on Scribd
Key takeaways from the House Ethics Committee report
17-year-old testified about having sex with Gaetz
A 17-year-old girl who had just finished her junior year of high school, identified as "Victim A" in the report, testified to the committee that she twice had sex with Gaetz at a Florida house party in 2017. She claimed that Gaetz gave her $400 cash, “which she understood to be payment for sex.”
The teen said she did not tell Gaetz she was underage, nor did he ask. Gaetz denied to the committee that he had sex with a minor. The House committee said it "did not receive any evidence indicating that Representative Gaetz was aware that Victim A was a minor when he had sex with her."
Gaetz paid to have sex with women
The committee found that from 2017 through 2020, Gaetz “made tens of thousands of dollars in payments to women that the Committee determined were likely in connection with sexual activity and/or drug use." According to the report, Gaetz paid more than $90,000 to 12 different women; one of those women appeared to be Gaetz's girlfriend who participated in sexual encounters with other women.
The payments, paid through money transfer platforms like CashApp, Venmo and PayPal as well as via cash and checks, listed descriptions including: tickets, dinner, car trouble, "gift" and “just because."
According to the report, Gaetz worked with Joel Greenberg — the Seminole County tax collector who was sentenced in 2022 to 11 years in prison for sex trafficking of a minor among other crimes — to meet women through SeekingArrangement.com.
Women interviewed by the committee said their sexual activity with the former congressman was consensual, but "at least one woman felt that the use of drugs at the parties and events they attended may have “impair[ed their] ability to really know what was going on or fully consent.”
Gaetz likely violated state laws
While the committee writes that it “did not obtain substantial evidence that Representative Gaetz violated federal sex trafficking laws,” the report states that Gaetz’s behavior did appear to be in violation of other Florida state laws, including engaging in commercial sex and statutory rape. The report notes that Florida’s statutory rape law makes it a felony for anyone age 24 or older to engage in sexual activity with a 16 or 17-year-old, adding that “a person charged with this offense may not claim ignorance or misrepresentation of the minor’s age as a defense.”
“Nearly every young woman that the Committee interviewed confirmed that she was paid for sex by, or on behalf of, Representative Gaetz,” the report states, adding that, “A few of the women characterized their relationship differently, describing a date-for-hire arrangement that may not necessarily implicate state prostitution laws.”
The report also concludes that Gaetz used illegal drugs, including cocaine, ecstasy and marijuana, and that he violated the House gift rule in connection to a trip he took to the Bahamas in September 2018.
Gaetz sought to obstruct the committee’s investigation
The report details Gaetz’s repeated refusal to cooperate with the committee’s investigation, concluding that the former congressman “knowingly and willfully sought to impede and obstruct the Committee’s investigation of his conduct.” Among other things, the committee writes that Gaetz missed multiple extended deadlines for requests for records relating to the probe, and sent letters to the chairman and ranking member making a variety of claims, including that he was being treated differently from other members of Congress, and “making demands of the Committee in exchange for his ‘good faith’ cooperation while suggesting that the Committee was being ‘weaponized’ against him.”
The report also states that “the Committee also reviewed allegations that Representative Gaetz may have sought to tamper with witness testimony in connection with its investigation or the DOJ’s investigation,” and notes that “while the Committee did not find documentary evidence that Representative Gaetz directly acted to prevent any woman from testifying before DOJ or the Committee, some women cited a fear of retaliation from the congressman when declining to speak on the record with the Committee.”
Who is Matt Gaetz?
Gaetz, 42, was elected to Congress in 2016 as a Republican and has for years been one of Trump's most vocal defenders on Capitol Hill as one of the leaders of the so-called MAGA movement. According to USA Today, "Gaetz earned his law degree from William & Mary Law School, graduating in the class of 2007, and was admitted to the Florida Bar in 2008."
In November, Gaetz won reelection to his seat in the U.S. House before Trump nominated him to run the Department of Justice. However, Gaetz withdrew his name from consideration for the role of the nation's top law enforcement officer amid bipartisan backlash — stemming, in part, from the House ethics investigation. Gaetz said his nomination was “unfairly becoming a distraction to the critical work of the Trump/Vance transition.”
The far-right Trump loyalist said that he wouldn’t be rejoining Congress in January. "I'm still going to be in the fight, but it's going to be from a new perch,” he told conservative commentator Charlie Kirk.
Why has the report been so closely watched?
Trump's selection of Gaetz to run the Justice Department was controversial because he had been investigated by the body that he would oversee. After Gaetz resigned from Congress, House Speaker Mike Johnson said that the House probe would be ending and no report would be released.
Despite his resignation, the House Ethics Committee has been under bipartisan pressure to disclose the report following Gaetz’s nomination.
Last week, Gaetz denied paying women for sex. "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 in a post on X. "Any claim that I have would be destroyed in court — which is why no such claim was ever made in court."