The House Ethics Committee found that then-Rep. Matt Gaetz bought illegal drugs, paid multiple women for sex and had sex with a 17-year-old while he was serving in Congress, according to the committee’s final report, which was released Monday.
The committee found “substantial evidence that Representative Gaetz violated House rules, state and federal laws, and other standards of conduct prohibiting prostitution, statutory rape, illicit drug use, acceptance of impermissible gifts, the provision of special favors and privileges, and obstruction of Congress,” the report says.
The 10-member committee, evenly split among Republicans and Democrats, was deadlocked in November on whether to release the report on its yearslong investigation into Gaetz. However, the panel secretly voted earlier this month to make it public.
According to the report, the committee found substantial evidence that, as a House member, Gaetz:
• “Regularly” paid women for sex, from at least 2017 to 2020, potentially in violation of Florida’s prostitution laws.
• Had sex with a 17-year-old girl “in violation of Florida’s statutory rape law.” Gaetz did not learn the girl’s age “until more than a month after their first sexual encounters,” the committee found, but the two of them maintained contact and “he met up with her again for commercial sex” after she turned 18.
• Used or possessed illegal drugs, including cocaine and ecstasy.
• Accepted gifts in excess of permissible limits, including in connection with a 2018 trip to the Bahamas.
• Helped a woman he was having sex with obtain an expedited passport.
Gaetz, 42, has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing. A Justice Department investigation into sex trafficking allegations against him concluded last year without any charges being brought against him. The DOJ declined to comment on the committee’s report Monday.
The House Ethics Committee also found that Gaetz “willfully sought to impede and obstruct” its investigation. “Representative Gaetz has acted in a manner that reflects discreditably upon the House,” the report says.
The panel said it did not find sufficient evidence to conclude that Gaetz had violated federal sex trafficking laws:
Although Representative Gaetz did cause the transportation of women across state lines for purposes of commercial sex, the Committee did not find evidence that any of those women were under 18 at the time of travel, nor did the Committee find sufficient evidence to conclude that the commercial sex acts were induced by force, fraud, or coercion.
Ahead of the report’s release, Gaetz wrote multiple posts on X on Monday morning, contending that he had given money to someone he was dating. He also filed a request for a temporary restraining order against the committee earlier in the morning to prevent the report from going public, arguing that its release would violate his due process rights.
Gaetz also noted in his petition that the committee no longer has jurisdiction over him. Though it’s rare for the ethics committee to release investigative reports on former members, there is precedent for doing so.
Joel Leppard, an attorney representing two women who testified before the committee, told NBC News that the panel’s “detailed findings vindicate their accounts and demonstrate their credibility.”
The women’s “testimony, supported by extensive documentation and corroborating witnesses, has now been validated through this comprehensive investigation,” Leppard added. “We appreciate the Committee’s commitment to transparency in releasing this report so the truth can be known.”
Gaetz represented Florida’s western panhandle in the House before quickly resigning in early November after President-elect Donald Trump said he planned to nominate him as attorney general in his incoming administration. But he withdrew less than two weeks later after Senate Republicans balked at confirming him.
The chair of the House Ethics Committee, Rep. Michael Guest, R-Miss., said in a statement after the report went public that it should not have been released.
“The decision to publish a report after his resignation breaks from the Committee’s long-standing practice and is a dangerous departure with potentially catastrophic consequences,” he wrote.
