Witness testifies that Matt Gaetz paid her for sex
The House Ethics Committee began investigating Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) in April 2021 after allegations surfaced about the congressman paying for sex with teenagers.
The House Ethics Committee is probing Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) over a number of salacious allegations, including that he used illegal drugs and engaged in sexual misconduct.
On April 9, 2021, the bipartisan committee began looking into allegations that Gaetz had been paying for sex with teenagers, drug trafficking, accepting bribes, sharing inappropriate material on the House floor, and other conduct issues.
The committee deferred to the Department of Justice to investigate the allegations, but the criminal probe did not produce any charges.
However, the ethics committee did not halt its investigation into Gaetz after the DOJ reauthorized the committee to continue its investigation.
On Tuesday, the panel confirmed that it was continuing its investigation into Gaetz’ alleged behavior, according to a statement put out by the committee. It did drop the allegations that Gaetz “shared inappropriate images or videos on the House floor, misused state identification records, converted campaign funds to personal use and/or accepted a bribe or improper gratuity.”
The committee added they have identified new potential misconduct issues after reviewing more than a thousand pages of material related to the investigation, 25 subpoenas and interviews with more than a dozen witnesses.
The newest allegations from the committee claim that Gaetz used his position to do favors for friends and family and sought to obstruct investigations into his misconduct.
The major allegations, that came out when Gaetz’s friend and former Seminole County tax collector Joel Greenberg, went to prison for six federal crimes including sex trafficking minors. Some of the women who testified in the case told CNN that Greenberg was paying minors and women to attend sex parties attended by both Gaetz and Greenberg.
The House Ethics Committee has reportedly obtained testimony from a witness who claims that she was paid for sex by Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL).
ABC News reports that one witness specifically told the committee that Gaetz sent her money through the payment app Venmo that was in exchange for a sexual encounter.
Other witnesses have told the committee that they were "paid to attend parties that Gaetz also attended and that featured drugs and sex," ABC News reports.
Gaetz was long the subject of a Department of Justice probe over potential sex trafficking of an underage girl, although in the end the DOJ declined to bring charges against the Florida congressman.
According to ABC, the House Ethics Committee has now obtained records of Gaetz's Venmo payments, which could be key evidence against him.
"The committee has obtained Gaetz's Venmo records after issuing the company a subpoena," reports ABC. "During the DOJ investigation into Gaetz, public reporting, including by The Daily Beast, largely focused on Venmo records from [former Seminole County, Florida tax collector Joel] Greenberg, who according to his plea agreement used his account to "pay for commercial sex acts" with women he also introduced to others. The committee obtaining Gaetz's records, which ABC News has not seen, could help provide Congressional investigators with a roadmap for payments the Congressman may have made while he was friends with Greenberg."
