The Home Ethics Committee lastly launched its report about allegations towards Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida on Monday after Donald Trump’s failed effort to appoint the previous congressman as U.S. Lawyer Common. And whereas Gaetz has denied allegations that he had intercourse with a minor, it’s a reasonably stunning learn throughout.
From at the very least 2017 to 2020, Gaetz allegedly paid hundreds of {dollars} for intercourse with ladies, in addition to a 17-year-old lady. The report additionally alleges that Gaetz took unlawful medicine like cocaine and ecstasy, and accepted a present journey to the Bahamas that broke congressional guidelines. Gaetz additionally helped one of many ladies he was having intercourse with to get an expedited passport, falsely telling the State Division that she was one among his constituents, in accordance with the report.
Gaetz additionally allegedly obstructed Congress because the investigation into his conduct was performed and refused to cooperate because the committee sought to determine whether or not the congressman had damaged ethics guidelines. It’s unclear whether or not Gaetz will face state costs over any of the allegations, although the committee not has jurisdiction over Gaetz since he resigned his seat, regardless of successful reelection in November.
The congressional report discovered that based mostly on its investigation, “there was substantial proof that Consultant Gaetz violated Home Guidelines, state and federal legal guidelines, and different requirements of conduct prohibiting prostitution, statutory rape, illicit drug use, acceptance of impermissible presents, the availability of particular favors and privileges, and obstruction of Congress.”
The report additionally contains screenshots of textual content messages from Joel Greenberg, a good friend of Gaetz who’s presently serving 11 years in jail for intercourse trafficking of a minor. Greenberg pleaded responsible to a number of costs in 2022 however denied having intercourse with any underage women.
The report has a breakdown of how a lot Gaetz allegedly paid numerous ladies from 2017 to 2020, totaling over $60,000, together with a former girlfriend who was allegedly concerned in among the actions with intercourse staff, although the report notes “among the funds might have been of a professional nature.”
Gaetz didn’t hand over textual content messages to the committee, however the report contains some messages from him, presumably obtained by way of the intercourse staff he was paying. The texts typically confer with “social gathering favors” which the report claims are references to unlawful medicine.
The committee additionally particulars within the report how Gaetz was allegedly launched to ladies by Greenberg who discovered them on the web site SeekingArrangement.com, an internet courting web site now generally known as simply Searching for.com, which makes a speciality of “sugar courting” relationships the place a youthful lady sometimes engages with an older man underneath some form of regular monetary association.
Gaetz took to social media after the discharge of the report back to defend himself towards the costs within the report.
Giving funds to somebody you might be courting – that they didn’t ask for – and that isn’t “charged” for intercourse is now prostitution?!?
There’s a cause they did this to me in a Christmas Eve-Eve report and never in a courtroom of any type the place I might current proof and problem… pic.twitter.com/HzWODpBBB9
— Matt Gaetz (@mattgaetz) December 23, 2024
Many Republicans objected to the discharge of the report, together with the chairman of the ethics committee Rep. Michael Visitor of Mississippi. Visitor wrote for the dissenting members of the committee, insisting they not had jurisdiction to launch the findings since Gaetz had resigned, an argument that doesn’t make any sense in anyway.
“We imagine that working outdoors the jurisdictional bounds set forth by Home Guidelines and Committee requirements, particularly when making public disclosures, is a harmful departure with doubtlessly catastrophic penalties,” wrote Visitor.
It’s not clear what might be “harmful” about releasing a congressional report until it contained one thing inaccurate, which Visitor doesn’t allege. Congress releases stories about individuals who’ve by no means labored as congressmen on a regular basis. The committee merely doesn’t have jurisdiction to punish him anymore. The state and federal authorities, nevertheless, do have jurisdiction in the event that they want to cost him with any of the offenses outlined within the report.
There are a whole bunch of pages included within the appendices, with all the things from airline boarding passes and journey itineraries to questionnaires submitted to the committee and textual content messages between Gaetz and the ladies he allegedly paid for intercourse. And a few on social media took the chance to joke about among the particulars in there, together with the truth that at the very least one of many ladies was flying Spirit Airlines.
Not sufficient discuss how Matt Gaetz was making them fly Spirit Airways pic.twitter.com/nqstSfZoTu
— Monica Venzke (@monicavenzke) December 23, 2024
Regardless of the subject, the web goes to roast you.
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