Former American elected official Matt Gaetz, once designated by Donald Trump as the next Minister of Justice before having to give up, paid a 17-year-old minor for sex, concludes a parliamentary report made public on Monday.
Between 2017 and 2020, the then Florida representative in Congress “made payments to women amounting to tens of thousands of dollars, which the Commission determined were likely related to sexual relations and/or drug use,” including cocaine and ecstasy, write members of the House of Representatives Ethics Committee in their 37-page report.
The commission, which has been investigating since 2021, also says it has collected testimony from a woman claiming to have had sexual relations with Matt Gaetz twice at a party in 2017, when she was only 17 years old. She says she was paid $400 in cash by the elected official after that.
The report notes that under Florida law, any sexual act committed by a person over the age of 24 on a minor 16 or 17 years old is a felony.
The Commission determined that there was “substantial evidence” that Matt Gaetz had violated the rules of Congress, but also federal and Florida state laws regarding, among other things, prostitution, sexual relations with minors or illicit drug use.
The 42-year-old ex-elect has always denied having had sexual relations with minors, and pointed out in a press release on X last week that an investigation by the Ministry of Justice had resulted in 2023 in the absence of prosecutions. . “I probably partied, slept around, drank, and smoked more than I should have” in the past, he said, denying any criminal wrongdoing and adding “live a different life now.”
His lawyers filed a complaint Monday asking a federal court to block any publication of the parliamentary report, to no avail. “There is a reason they did this to me in a report the day before Christmas and not in any court where I could present evidence and confront witnesses,” he wrote on X Monday.
Re-elected to Congress in early November, Matt Gaetz resigned from his mandate a few days after being designated by Donald Trump as his future Minister of Justice. But this appointment caused a stir due to the numerous controversies surrounding the elected official from Florida.
Faced with the difficulties of seeing his appointment confirmed by the Senate, the former Republican elected official had given up on becoming a minister. In January he is due to become a presenter on OAN, a conservative and pro-Trump channel.
