US House panel finds Matt Gaetz paid for sex and drugs, obstructed Congress

Former Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz paid tens of thousands of dollars to women for drugs and sex that were violations of a series of House rules and included obstruction of Congress, the US House of Representatives' Ethics Committee said in a report released on Monday.

The report found that Gaetz paid $90,000 to 12 women, a substantial portion of which the panel found was likely for either sexual activity or drug use. It also determined there was "substantial evidence" Gaetz had sex with a 17-year-old girl while serving in the House.

Gaetz, who has denied wrongdoing, resigned from the House last month after he was selected by President-elect Donald Trump to be attorney general. He then withdrew from consideration for that job in the face of an uphill confirmation battle in the Senate.

The release of the report came despite a last-minute legal challenge from Gaetz in federal court in Washington, DC, in which he argued that the Ethics panel no longer had jurisdiction after Gaetz resigned from Congress.

The committee went forward with the release of the report and Gaetz's lawyers later conceded that the lawsuit was now irrelevant.

"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 stated in its conclusion.

While Gaetz was found to have been involved in transporting women across state lines for the purposes of commercial sex, the panel said it did not find evidence that any of the women were under 18 at the time of travel or that Gaetz had violated federal sex trafficking laws.

However, someone identified as "Victim A" told the panel of twice having sex with Gaetz at a party in 2017 while she was underage, receiving a $400 cash payment that she understood to be for sex.

At the time, the victim had just completed her junior year of high school. She testified that she did not inform Gaetz that she was under 18 at the time, nor did he ask her age. The committee did not receive any evidence indicating that Gaetz was aware that she was a minor when he had sex with her.

The report concluded that the encounter likely violated Florida state law on statutory rape because Gaetz was 35 years old at the time.

Gaetz denied in a written submission to the panel that he had sex with anyone under the age of 18, but did not address the specific allegations related to "Victim A," according to the report.

Reuters was not immediately able to reach Gaetz for comment.

In a post on X social media ahead of the report's release, Gaetz said he sometimes "sent funds to women I dated."

"It's embarrassing, though not criminal, that I probably partied, womanized, drank and smoked more than I should have earlier in life," Gaetz wrote in the post. "I live a different life now."

The move to make the report public was not unanimous.

Chairman Michael Guest said in a dissenting statement that the committee's findings were not being challenged, but that the panel was deviating from "well-established standards" in releasing a report on a former member of the House.

Gaetz was the subject of a three-year FBI investigation into allegations of sex trafficking that produced no criminal charges.

Gaetz played a lead role in 2023 in forcing a first-ever successful vote by the House to oust its speaker, who at the time was Kevin McCarthy -- just nine months into the job.