
The House Ethics Committee’s bombshell report about former Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz was obtained and published by CNN and CBS News, among other outlets, on Monday. A final draft of the report alleges that the Republican firebrand and short-lived attorney general nominee spent tens of thousands of dollars on drugs and sex, including with a 17-year-old high school student.
The 37-page report concludes that Gaetz violated state laws in Florida, which include the statutory rape law for the state, which defines the age of consent as 18, CNN reported.
“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 says in its conclusion, according to CBS News.
Gaetz filed a lawsuit to block the release of the report on Monday, citing his resignation from Congress and current status as a private citizen.
The long-awaited report on Gaetz’s conduct comes after years of whiplash surrounding the status of the House investigation and whether the public would ever see the Ethics Committee’s findings. Along the way, Gaetz repeatedly maintained his innocence.
Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz campaigns for Donald Trump and J.D. Vance in Atlanta on Nov. 4, 2024.
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The Ethics Committee first announced it had begun an investigation into Gaetz in April 2021 over allegations that he may have engaged in sexual misconduct and/or illicit drug use; shared inappropriate images or videos on the House floor; misused state identification records; converted campaign funds to personal use; and/or accepted a bribe, improper gratuity, or impermissible gift.
The committee then revealed in a later reportthat it had deferred an investigation into the lawmaker following a request from the Department of Justice, which was conducting its own investigation.
Then, in June 2023, reports surfaced that the committee was re-examining the allegations surrounding the controversial lawmaker after the Justice Department declined to charge him. The committee’s investigation reportedly heated up early in 2024 as new witnesses were called in to testify.
Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz leaves a closed door meeting with former White House counsel Don McGahn at the U.S. Capitol in 2021.
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In the leaked report findings, the drug-fueled parties and luxury travel rumors are outlined. According to CBS News, on one such trip in 2018 to the Bahamas — which was allegedly gifted to him against House Ethics guidelines — multiple witnesses saw Gaetz take ecstasy. During that same trip, witnesses alleged he had sex with four women.
The report also says that at a 2017 party, per witness testimony, Gaetz had sex twice with “Victim A,” who was then 17 years old and had not yet begun her senior year of high school.
“Victim A recalled receiving $400 in cash from Representative Gaetz that evening, which she understood to be payment for sex,” the committee noted, according to CBS News. “Victim A said that she did not inform Representative Gaetz that she was under 18 at the time, nor did he ask her age.”
Though the women who testified all noted that the sexual encounters with Gaetz were consensual, one witness suggested that the drug use involved may have impaired their “ability to really know what was going on or fully consent,” according to CBS News. Another woman testified: “When I look back on certain moments, I feel violated.”
Gaetz, who married Ginger Luckey in 2021, released a statement on X prior to the report’s release in which he said: “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. … 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.”
According to outlets that reviewed the final report draft, the House Ethics Committee additionally concluded that Gaetz set up a fake email in his congressional office that was used for purchasing marijuana, and that he directed his chief of staff to deceitfully work with the State Department to obtain a passport for one of the women with whom he had sexual relations.
President Donald Trump and Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz at a campaign event Nov. 26, 2019.
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In November, Gaetz became the center of the national conversation when he was named President-elect Donald Trump’s surprise nominee for attorney general despite only briefly practicing law before entering politics and still being under investigation by House Ethics.
As Gaetz’s controversies dominated the news cycle and senators on both sides of the aisle expressed hesitance about confirming his nomination, murmurs arose that the Ethics Committee was thinking about finally releasing its report on the lawmaker given the strong public interest.
Gaetz quickly resigned from Congress and, not long after that, withdrew his nomination for attorney general, which weakened the argument for publicizing the results of the investigation. The Ethics Committee — which consists of five Republicans and five Democrats — voted in late November to not release the report.
But more recently, CNN revealed that the committee secretly met again in early December and held a new vote on the matter, in which the 10 members came to a different conclusion: that the public deserved to see the information they had on Gaetz.
Matt Gaetz speaks at the Republican National Convention on July 17, 2024.
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During the separate, earlier criminal probe into Gaetz — which did not result in any charges against him — a federal grand jury investigated whether the Florida Republican had a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old and paid her to travel with him.
News of the federal investigation into Gaetz first broke in March 2021 and, according to The New York Times, was opened in the final months of the Trump administration under then-Attorney General Bill Barr.
Sources told NBC News at the time that Gaetz was being investigated for three separate alleged crimes: sex trafficking a 17-year-old; violating the Mann Act by taking a woman or women across state lines for prostitution; and obstruction of justice.
The probe involving Gaetz reportedly spun out of a separate investigation into his friend Joel Greenberg, a former GOP official from Seminole County, Fla.
Greenberg was indicted on a range of charges, including sex trafficking of a child, in 2020. In May 2021, he pleaded guilty to multiple charges including sex trafficking a minor and was believed to be cooperating with authorities.
