Illegal drugs and sex with a minor: All the allegations against Matt Gaetz revealed in explosive report
As a sitting member of Congress, Matt Gaetz paid for sex with a 17-year-old high school student, used cocaine and ecstasy, and spent thousands of dollars on sex- and drug-fueled partying, according to a bombshell report from the House Ethics Committee.
The report found “substantial evidence” the now-former Republican congressman “regularly” paid for sex and met women through a “sugar dating” website through a former associate who has since pleaded guilty to sex trafficking.
The report determined Gaetz likely violated rules of conduct for the House of Representatives that prohibit “prostitution, statutory rape, illicit drug use, impermissible gifts, special favors or privileges, and obstruction of Congress.”
Ethics committee members paint a damning portrait of a four-year span, in which Gaetz allegedly paid tens of thousands of dollars to young women for sex — a period when Gaetz emerged as a far-right bulldog for Donald Trump’s agenda and a prominent figure in right-wing media.
The president-elect named Gaetz as his first choice for the next U.S. attorney general, overseeing the Department of Justice as the nation’s top law enforcement official. Gaetz resigned from the House following that nomination, and then withdrew his name from consideration amid mounting scrutiny of the allegations at the center of the committee’s years-long investigation.
The former congressman has since taken a job with One America News Network and hinted at another run for public office.
He has vehemently denied allegations of wrongdoing. He filed a federal lawsuit against the committee to block the public release of its findings, which he claimed contained “defamatory information.”
Shortly after he entered office in 2017, Gaetz and his associate Joel Greenberg attended a party where Gaetz “had sex with multiple women,” including a 17-year-old girl, who were paid, according to the report.
Gaetz’s then-girlfriend also attended the party, which was allegedly at the home of Christopher Dorworth, a prominent lobbyist in Florida.
Then-congressman Gaetz and the girl, identified as Victim A, “had sex twice during the party, including at least once in the presence of other party attendees.”
Gaetz was 35 years old at the time.
Victim A testified to the committee that she was “under the influence of ecstasy” and “recalled receiving $400 in cash” from Gaetz, “which she understood to be payment for sex”
She did not disclose her age, nor did he ask. The committee did not find evidence that Gaetz was aware she was a minor.
After later learning she was a minor, he maintained contact “less than [six] months” after she turned 18 year old, and then “met up with her again for commercial sex,” according to the report.
