Illegal drugs and sex with a minor: All the allegations against Matt Gaetz revealed in explosive report

A bombshell ethics investigation alleges Matt Gaetz paid for sex with a high schooler, used cocaine and ecstasy, and abused the power of his office. He denies wrongdoing. Alex Woodward reports

As a sitting member of Congress, Matt Gaetz paid for sex with a 17-year-old high school student, used cocaine and ecstasy, and spent thousands of dollars on sex- and drug-fueled partying, according to a bombshell report from the House Ethics Committee.

The report found “substantial evidence” the now-former Republican congressman “regularly” paid for sex and met women through a “sugar dating” website through a former associate who has since pleaded guilty to sex trafficking.

The report determined Gaetz likely violated rules of conduct for the House of Representatives that prohibit “prostitution, statutory rape, illicit drug use, impermissible gifts, special favors or privileges, and obstruction of Congress.”

Matt Gaetz is accused of paying for sex with a 17-year-old girl and using illicit drugs while a member of Congress (Getty Images)

Ethics committee members paint a damning portrait of a four-year span, in which Gaetz allegedly paid tens of thousands of dollars to young women for sex — a period when Gaetz emerged as a far-right bulldog for Donald Trump’s agenda and a prominent figure in right-wing media.

The president-elect named Gaetz as his first choice for the next U.S. attorney general, overseeing the Department of Justice as the nation’s top law enforcement official. Gaetz resigned from the House following that nomination, and then withdrew his name from consideration amid mounting scrutiny of the allegations at the center of the committee’s years-long investigation.

The former congressman has since taken a job with One America News Network and hinted at another run for public office.

He has vehemently denied allegations of wrongdoing. He filed a federal lawsuit against the committee to block the public release of its findings, which he claimed contained “defamatory information.”

‘Statutory rape’ involving 17-year-old girl

Shortly after he entered office in 2017, Gaetz and his associate Joel Greenberg attended a party where Gaetz “had sex with multiple women,” including a 17-year-old girl, who were paid, according to the report.

Gaetz’s then-girlfriend also attended the party, which was allegedly at the home of Christopher Dorworth, a prominent lobbyist in Florida.

Then-congressman Gaetz and the girl, identified as Victim A, “had sex twice during the party, including at least once in the presence of other party attendees.”

Gaetz was 35 years old at the time.

Matt Gaetz allegedly had sex with a high school student while he was 35 and a newly sworn-in member of the House of Representatives (AP)

Victim A testified to the committee that she was “under the influence of ecstasy” and “recalled receiving $400 in cash” from Gaetz, “which she understood to be payment for sex”

She did not disclose her age, nor did he ask. The committee did not find evidence that Gaetz was aware she was a minor.

After later learning she was a minor, he maintained contact “less than [six] months” after she turned 18 year old, and then “met up with her again for commercial sex,” according to the report.

When Greenberg was prosecuted for sex trafficking that same victim, Gaetz publicly stated that Victim A “doesn’t exist” and that he has not “had sex with a 17-year-old since I was 17,” the report noted.

The committee found his statements “untrue” and his alleged actions “were in violation of Florida’s statutory rape law.”

Tens of thousands of dollars for sex

Gaetz “became friends” with Greenberg — who had recently taken office as a tax collector in Florida’s Seminole County — shortly after Gaetz was sworn into Congress in 2017, according to the report.

Greenberg would contact women through SeekingArrangement.com — now Seeking.com — which had billed itself as a “sugar dating” website to connect financially well-off men with younger women for transactional relationships.

Greenberg would show the website to Gaetz and give him his login credentials, and the men would then split the costs of “drugs, hotels and girls” they would invite to parties and travel destinations, according to the report.

Gaetz and his associate Joel Greenberg allegedly met women through a ‘sugar dating’ website and paid them tens of thousands of dollars for sex (AP)

Gaetz would often pay women through PayPal and Venmo, as well as cash and with paper checks, or Greenberg would pay women to have sex with Gaetz, who then reimbursed Greenberg, the report found.

Sometimes a lump sum would be sent to one woman, who would then distribute the cash to others who attended their parties, according to the report.

The report lists payments totaling more than $90,000 to 12 different women between 2017 and 2020.

Text messages obtained by the committee appear to show that Gaetz and the women understood the nature of the payments as transactions for sex.

“Representative Gaetz did not appear to have negotiated specific payment amounts prior to engaging in sexual activity with the women he paid,” according to the report. “Instead, the women had a general expectation that they would typically receive some amount of money after each sexual encounter.”

One woman told the committee Gaetz paid her more than $5,000 between 2018 and 2019, and “99 percent of the time that Gaetz and I] were hanging out, there was sex involved.”

Gaetz is also accused of routinely using drugs including cocaine and ecstasy (REUTERS)

A 21-year-old woman Greenberg met on SeekingArrangement.com eventually became Gaetz’s girlfriend when he was 35. Their relationship continued for more than two years, though they were not exclusive; she “sometimes participated with him in sexual encounters with other women who were active on the website or otherwise involved in sex-for-money arrangements,” according to the report.

She invoked her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination in response to several of the committee’s questions, including whether Gaetz had ever paid her for sex and if she was aware Gaetz had ever paid anyone for sex.

“There is substantial evidence that Representative Gaetz paid women for sex, and had others pay women for sex on his behalf,” the report concluded. “Nearly every young woman that the committee interviewed confirmed that she was paid for sex by, or on behalf of, Representative Gaetz.”

While some women characterized their relationship as a “date-for-hire” arrangement where sex was not necessarily expected, Gaetz still spent “tens of thousands of dollars on other women with whom he had a shared understanding that they would be compensated for sexual activity with him,” according to the report.

“There were potentially additional amounts spent on commercial sex that could not be specifically identified either because payments were made in cash or through intermediaries,” the committee added. “The Committee’s record thus indicates that Representative Gaetz enticed and procured women to engage in sexual activity for hire and purchased the services of women engaging in sexual activity for hire, in violation of Florida state law.”

Use of marijuana, ecstasy and cocaine

Text messages obtained by the committee include Gaetz’s requests for “a full compliment [sic] of party favors,” as well as “vitamins” or “rolls.” Greenberg asks one woman if she had ever done “molly,” while women testified that Gaetz routinely was under the influence of marijuana, cocaine or ecstasy.

Gaetz sent one woman several hundred dollars to buy marijuana cartridges, while another woman said she and Gaetz’s then-girlfriend brought drugs on a trip to the Bahamas, the report found.

A years-long House Ethics Committee investigation into allegations surrounding Matt Gaetz concluded with a sweeping report published December 23 (Getty Images)

Another woman said that she brought cocaine to at least one event with Gaetz and that she witnessed him taking cocaine or ecstasy on at least five occasions, according to the report. “Nearly every witness interviewed observed Representative Gaetz using marijuana,” the report stated.

Greenberg also testified that he would typically provide drugs and Gaetz would pay him back in cash.

Questions of consent and ‘coercion’

All of the women interviewed by the committee said their sexual relationship with Gaetz was consensual, but at least one woman said the use of drugs at the parties they attended with him may have “[impaired their] ability to really know what was going on or fully consent.”

“Indeed, nearly every woman that the Committee spoke with could not remember the details of at least one or more of the events they attended with Representative Gaetz and attributed that to drug or alcohol consumption,” according to the report.

Women also testified to moments where Gaetz tried to convince them to have sex with him or Greenberg. Women described being made to “feel bad’ about not having sex with the men, and being asked to “make” them “happy.”

Another woman said that their relationship at some point was a “loving friendship,” but over time came to feel like a “task,” according to the report.

“When I look back on certain moments, I feel violated,” one woman said.

“I think about it all the time. ... I still see him when I turn on the TV and there’s nothing anyone can do,” said another. “It’s frustrating to know I lived a reality that he denies.”

The committee’s report suggests women may not have been able to ‘fully consent’ to sex with Gaetz while they were under the influence of drugs and alcohol (AP)

In one instance, a 21-year-old woman who joined Greenberg and Gaetz at a Florida hotel, along with another 20-year-old woman Gaetz “regularly” paid for sex, had asked Gaetz for help with her tuition payments, according to messages included in the report.

When she arrived to pick up the check in a hotel room, she found Greenberg and the 20-year-old woman, with the “expectation” of a “sexual encounter” in exchange, according to the report.

“The four of them had sex and afterwards Representative Gaetz gave her a $750 check made out to cash with ‘tuition reimbursement’ in the memo line,” the report found.

The 21-year-old woman told the committee she believed that the encounter “could potentially be a form of coercion because I really needed the money.”

While the committee did not find evidence that Gaetz violated federal sex trafficking laws, the report noted that the youngest person who joined the Bahamas trip was 18 years old at the time, and that while his relationship with the women “involved an exploitative power imbalance, the Committee does not have reason to believe that he used force, fraud, or coercion as those terms apply under the applicable laws.”

Abuse of office

In early 2018, Greenberg paid a woman who had sex with Gaetz the night they met, according to the report.

During that encounter, the woman told Gaetz she needed a new passport, and Gaetz connected her to his chief of staff, who then worked with the State Department to secure an appointment days later, the report found.

She said the $1,000 she received from Greenberg was to “assist her with transportation costs to go to the Miami passport office from Orlando,” according to the report. The woman said she continued to meet with Gaetz for sex.

Obstruction and ‘tampering’

The committee found evidence of Gaetz’s obstruction of the probe, pointing to his refusals to answer committee questions while publicly attacking the report and denying allegations that the committee was asking for information about.

Gaetz abruptly resigned from Congress after Donald Trump nominated him for US attorney general. He then withdrew his name from consideration following reports that an ethics probe could soon publish its findings (REUTERS)

The committee also was investigating allegations that “Gaetz may have sought to tamper with witness testimony in connection with its investigation or the DOJ’s investigation.” Prosecutors “refused to provide a copy of an audio recording in which Representative Gaetz discussed the DOJ’s inquiry with one of the women he paid for sex,” according to the report.

The committee “did not find documentary evidence that Representative Gaetz directly acted to prevent any woman from testifying” for either of those probes, but some women “cited a fear of retaliation from the congressman when declining to speak on the record with the Committee.”

No evidence of sex trafficking

In 2021, Greenberg pleaded guilty to sex trafficking a minor, among other charges, and agreed to cooperate with the Justice Department in the “prosecutions of other persons, and to testify” in related proceedings, if necessary.

He admitted to introducing a “minor to other adult men, who engaged in commercial sex acts” with her, according to a plea agreement.

The Ethics Committee found “substantial evidence” that Gaetz violated state and federal laws and congressional rules surrounding prostitution and statutory rape, among other allegations, but investigators ultimately did not find that Gaetz violated a federal sex trafficking statute.

“Although Representative Gaetz did cause the transportation of women across state lines for purposes of commercial sex, the Committee did not find evidence that any of those women were under 18 at the time of travel, nor did the Committee find sufficient evidence to conclude that the commercial sex acts were induced by force, fraud, or coercion,” the report concluded.