Document on three-year sex-trafficking investigation shows thousands of dollars in payments linked to drug-fuelled sex parties, according to testimony
Matt Gaetz speaks during a House Freedom Caucus news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington DC, in February 2024. Photograph: Kenny Holston/The New York Times, to a group of women including individuals who testified that Mr Gaetz had hired them for sex, according to a document obtained by the New York Times and a lawyer representing some of the women.
Mr Gaetz represented Florida in Congress from 2017 until last week. He has vehemently denied their accounts, and the federal investigation was closed by the justice department without any charges against him. Vice president-electaccompanied Mr Gaetz to Capitol Hill on Wednesday in an effort to build support for his nomination among Republican senators, some of whom have expressed doubt that he is confirmable.
Because the justice department declined to charge Mr Gaetz with a crime, the documents amassed during the investigation have remained secret, as the department almost never releases materials that law enforcement agencies develop in investigations in which no charges are brought. But a copy of the chart was obtained by the House ethics committee during its own wide-ranging investigation into Mr Gaetz’s conduct, including whether he had sex with the then-17-year-old.
It has been publicly known for several years that women have claimed that Mr Gaetz paid them for sex. Shortly after the New York Times revealed the existence of the federal sex-trafficking investigation into Mr Gaetz in 2021, it reported that investigators were focusing on Mr Gaetz’s involvement with multiple women who were recruited online for sex, and on how they received payments.
The office of the House ethics committee in the Longworth House Office Building in Washington, DC. The committee is to meet to vote on whether to release a report on sexual misconduct by Matt Gaetz, president-elect Donald Trump's nominee to be the next attorney general. Photograph: Kevin Dietsch/Getty
Records the committee had, he said, showed payments from Mr Gaetz to one of his clients totalling about $6,000, and showed payments to the other of $4,000.
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