The House Ethics Committee’s final report on its investigation into former Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., found that he engaged in a long list of conduct that violates House Rules and some actions that could be criminal offenses at the state level.
The committee released its 42-page report Monday morning after a lengthy investigation.
“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,” the report reads.
Gaetz has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing, and in a series of posts Monday on X, he denied having paid for sex. The committee said in its report that he didn’t cooperate with its investigation and that he “routinely ignored or significantly delayed producing relevant information requested.”
Gaetz vacated his seat last month, days before the report was expected to be made public and after President-elect Donald Trump announced him as his pick for attorney general. Gaetz withdrew his bid after more details about the Ethics Committee investigation and other allegations were reported.
Ethics Committee Chair Michael Guest, R-Miss., said Monday in a statement after the report was released that while he doesn’t “challenge the Committee’s findings,” he didn’t vote to release the Gaetz report.
“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 said.
Trump's transition team and the office of House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
A Democratic member of the Ethics Committee, Rep. Glenn Ivey of Maryland, said in an interview Monday on MSNBC that the committee's purpose is "to make sure our members know what they can do, what they can’t do, what crosses the line and what doesn’t. And so I think issuing the report certainly provides guidance on that front."
"We’ve got a lot of people who are concerned about Congress, cynical about Washington and the like," he continued. "I think it’s important for us to be able to show that we are trying to keep our own House in order in this way."
The committee outlined a significant amount of evidence that it says shows Gaetz, as a member of Congress, regularly engaged in sexual activity with women whom he was also paying substantial sums of money. Committee investigators said they tracked more than $90,000 to 12 women over a four-year period from 2017 to 2020. The committee concluded the payments were most likely connected to sexual activity and or drug use.
The committee said that while Gaetz has repeatedly denied ever having paid for sex, when he was given the opportunity to put that claim in writing, “Gaetz refused to respond, asserting that ‘asking about [his] sexual history as a single man with adult women is a bridge too far.’”
The committee said that it heard testimony from more than a half-dozen witnesses who attended parties, events and trips with Gaetz from 2017 to 2020 and that “nearly every young woman that the Committee interviewed confirmed that she was paid for sex by, or on behalf of, Representative Gaetz."
“While all the women that the Committee interviewed stated their sexual activity with Representative Gaetz was consensual, at least one woman felt that the use of drugs at the parties and events they attended may have ‘impair[ed her] ability to really know what was going on or fully consent,’” the report said. “Indeed, nearly every woman that the Committee spoke with could not remember the details of at least one or more of the events they attended with Representative Gaetz and attributed that to drug or alcohol consumption.”
Two women told the committee that Gaetz had paid them for sex, including a woman who said he paid a woman for sex at a small, invitation-only party in Florida, where prostitution is illegal, in 2017 while he was a member of the House, their lawyer told NBC News. Those women were of age at the time.
“My clients provided crucial testimony to the House Ethics Committee at significant personal cost," attorney Joel Leppard, who represents the two women who testified to the committee, told NBC News in a statement, "The Committee’s thorough investigation and detailed findings vindicate their accounts and demonstrate their credibility. Their testimony, supported by extensive documentation and corroborating witnesses, has now been validated through this comprehensive investigation. We appreciate the Committee’s commitment to transparency in releasing this report so the truth can be known."
The report also details a sexual encounter Gaetz was alleged to have had with a woman who was a junior in high school at the same party. The woman testified before the committee that she had sex with Gaetz twice at the party in 2017, when she was 17. She also claimed to have received money from Gaetz, then in Congress, that she perceived to be a payment for sex.
“The Committee received testimony that Victim A and Representative Gaetz had sex twice during the party, including at least once in the presence of other party attendees. Victim A recalled receiving $400 in cash from Representative Gaetz that evening, which she understood to be payment for sex. At the time, she had just completed her junior year of high school,” the report reads.
The woman “acknowledged that she was under the influence of ecstasy during her sexual encounters with Representative Gaetz at the July 15, 2017, party, and recalled seeing Representative Gaetz use cocaine at that party,” the committee said.
The woman told the committee that she didn’t tell Gaetz she was underage, and the committee also said it didn’t discover any evidence that Gaetz knew he was having sex with a minor.
While the committee concluded that Gaetz may be in violation of several state laws, it said that it didn’t obtain “substantial evidence” that he violated federal sex trafficking laws. Gaetz was the subject of a lengthy criminal investigation by the Justice Department, but prosecutors chose not to bring charges.
The Justice Department declined to comment on the committee’s report. Gaetz has claimed that the Justice Department exonerated him, but declining to bring charges isn’t the same as exonerating someone.
A senior Justice Department official told NBC News that the decision not to bring charges was made by career prosecutors, not Attorney General Merrick Garland or other Justice Department leaders.
The official pointed out that bringing charges and prosecuting and proving a case in court is much different from a committee investigation. Addressing the federal sex trafficking allegations, the senior official said the Justice Department would have brought charges if it thought it had a winning case.
Florida Statewide Prosecutor Nick Cox declined to comment on the allegations and referred NBC News to local enforcement authorities.
“Allegations of violations of state criminal law would be investigated by law enforcement in the appropriate jurisdiction, such as a local police department, sheriff’s office or the Florida Department of Law Enforcement," Cox said. "To determine if the agencies in the relevant jurisdictions have received information from the House Ethics Committee or have initiated investigations, you would need to contact those law enforcement agencies directly. Single-circuit crimes would be prosecuted by the state attorney where the crime occurred."
A spokesperson for Washington, D.C, Attorney General Brian Schwalb declined to comment.
The report goes into detail about a trip Gaetz took to the Bahamas with two men and six women in 2018. The committee said it believed the trip violated House gift rules, citing the testimony of a woman who described it as payment for sex. The committee said that Gaetz engaged in sexual activity with several women on the trip and that several women on the trip recalled that he appeared to be under the influence of drugs and that they took ecstasy.
The committee said it found that Gaetz used cocaine, ecstasy and marijuana and says there was “ample evidence” that Gaetz appeared “to have set up a pseudonymous e-mail account from his House office in the Capitol complex for the purpose of purchasing marijuana.”
The panel said he also used the power of his office to assist a woman he was engaged in a sexual relationship with to obtain an expedited passport, with his chief of staff falsely claiming she was his constituent.
Earlier Monday, in an attempt to prevent the report’s release, Gaetz sought a temporary restraining order against the committee and its chair, calling for an injunction that would prevent its release.
“The Committee’s apparent intention to release its report after explicitly acknowledging it lacks jurisdiction over former members, its failure to follow constitutional notions of due process, and failure to adhere to its own procedural rules and precedent represents an unprecedented overreach that threatens fundamental constitutional rights and established procedural protections," his lawyers said.
Before the report was released, Gaetz had repeatedly denied any wrongdoing, noting that a separate Justice Department probe into allegations of sex trafficking ended with no charges.
Gaetz has repeatedly denied paying for sex or having sex with anyone underage.
“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,” Gaetz wrote in a lengthy post on X last week. “I NEVER had sexual contact with someone under 18. Any claim that I have would be destroyed in court — which is why no such claim was ever made in court. My 30’s were an era of working very hard — and playing hard too.”
“It’s embarrassing, though not criminal, that I probably partied, womanized, drank and smoked more than I should have earlier in life. I live a different life now,” he added.
