In addition to soliciting prostitution, the Ethics Committee report states that Gaetz “accepted gifts, including transportation and lodging in connection with a 2018 trip to the Bahamas, in excess of permissible amounts”.
That same year, investigators say Gaetz arranged for his chief of staff to obtain a passport for a woman he was sexually involved with, falsely telling the US State Department that she was his constituent.
In some of the text exchanges, Gaetz appears to be inviting various women to events, getaways or parties, and arranging airplane travel and lodging. At one point he asks one woman if she has a “cute black dress” to wear. There are also discussions of shipping goods.
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, a person asks Gaetz for help to pay an educational expense.
Regarding the 17-year-old girl, the report states there’s no evidence that Gaetz knew she was a minor when he had sex with her, the committee said. The woman told the committee she didn’t tell Gaetz she was under 18 at the time and that he didn’t know how old she was.
Rather, the committee said Gaetz learned she was a minor more than a month after the party. But he stayed in touch with her after that and met up with her for “commercial sex” again less than six months after she turned 18, according to the committee.
But Florida law, which states it is a felony for a person 24 or older to have sex with a minor, does not allow a claim of ignorance or misrepresentation of a minor’s age as a defence.
Joel Leppard, who represents two women who told the committee that Gaetz paid them for sex, said the findings “vindicate” the accounts of his clients and “demonstrate their credibility”.
“We appreciate the Committee’s commitment to transparency in releasing this comprehensive report so the truth can be known,” Leppard said in a statement.
At least one Republican joined all five Democrats on the Ethics Committee earlier this month in voting to release the report about their former colleague despite initial opposition from GOP lawmakers, including House Speaker Mike Johnson, to publishing findings about a former member of Congress.
While ethics reports have previously been released after a member’s resignation, it is extremely rare.
On behalf of the Republicans who voted against releasing the report, Representative Michael Guest of Mississippi, Ethics chairman, wrote that while the members do not challenge the report’s findings, “we take great exception that the majority deviated from the Committee’s well-established standards” to drop any investigation when a person is not longer a member of the chamber.
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“We believe that operating outside the jurisdictional bounds set forth by House Rules and Committee standards, especially when making public disclosures, is a dangerous departure with potentially catastrophic consequences,” Guest wrote.
Mounting a last-ditch effort to halt the publication of the report, Gaetz filed a lawsuit on Monday asking a court to intervene, citing what he called “untruthful and defamatory information” that would “significantly damage” his “standing and reputation in the community”. Gaetz’s complaint argues he’s no longer under the committee’s jurisdiction since 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 wrote in their request for a temporary restraining order.
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The often secretive, bipartisan panel has investigated claims against Gaetz since 2021. But 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 had withdrawn as Trump’s pick to lead the US Justice Department. A vote on the House floor this month to force the report’s release failed; all but one Republican voted against it.
The committee detailed its start-and-stop investigation over the past several years, which was halted for a time as the Justice Department conducted its own probe of Gaetz. Federal prosecutors never brought a case against him.
Lawmakers said they asked the Justice Department for information about its probe, but the agency refused to hand over information, saying it doesn’t disclose information about investigations that don’t result in charges.
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The Committee then subpoenaed the Justice Department for records, but after a back-and-forth between Justice Department officials and the Committee, the department only handed over “publicly reported information about the testimony of a deceased individual”, according to the report.
“To date, DOJ has provided no meaningful evidence or information to the Committee or cited any lawful basis for its responses,” the committee said.
In releasing the report, the panel added that Gaetz was also “un-cooperative” throughout the probe. He provided “minimal documentation” in response to the committee’s requests, it said. “He also did not agree to a voluntary interview.”
