Gaetz says he paid women he dated, rejects misconduct allegations amid renewed ethics threat

WASHINGTON (CN) — Former Florida Representative Matt Gaetz offered a bombastic response Wednesday to reports that a House ethics panel secretly agreed to release the results of a monthslong investigation into sexual misconduct allegations against him.

It’s a reversal of fortunes for Gaetz, who until this week appeared to have successfully dodged a congressional investigation. The lawmaker resigned from Congress in November after being tapped to join the second Trump administration, a move which stalled the Ethics Committee probe.

The panel for weeks has demurred from calls to publish its findings. But, as CNN reported Wednesday morning, lawmakers voted behind closed doors earlier this month to release the committee report on Gaetz after the House holds its final votes of the year.

The secret vote tees up what could be major revelations about the former Florida congressman’s conduct — including allegations that he had sex with an underage girl, used drugs and accepted bribes — landing just before Congress’ holiday recess. Gaetz has denied any wrongdoing.

The Florida congressman responded to the news Wednesday morning with an eight-paragraph treatise posted on his personal X account, in which he accused the Ethics Committee of planning to publish a report that he had no opportunity to “debate or rebut” as a former House lawmaker.

Gaetz pointed out that the Department of Justice under the Joe Biden administration had already investigated some of the allegations against him. The agency in 2022 looked into his relationship with Seminole County, Florida, tax collector Joel Greenberg, who was sentenced to 11 years in prison for underage sex trafficking.

“I was charged with nothing: FULLY EXONERATED,” Gaetz wrote. “Not even a campaign finance violation. And the people investigating me hated me.”

But the lawmaker also appeared to acknowledge some details in the Ethics Committee report.

“In my single days, I often sent funds to women I dated — even some I never dated but who asked,” he said.

The House panel reportedly reviewed evidence during closed-door testimony that suggested Gaetz paid more than $10,000 to two women between 2017 and 2019. The payments were spread out across 27 PayPal and Venmo transactions, and witnesses testified to the panel that some of them were for sex.

Gaetz, however, said the witnesses interviewed by the panel were “not credible” and that lawmakers assembled them to repeat their claims without input from the lawmaker or his attorneys. He complained that he was given no chance to confront any of his accusers.

The Florida Republican maintains that he never had sexual contact with anyone under 18 and claimed Wednesday that any allegations to the contrary would be “destroyed in court.”

Gaetz, 42, appealed to his own character, suggesting he had made poor decisions in the past but has changed.

“My 30s were an era of working very hard — and playing hard too,” said the lawmaker. “It’s embarrassing, though not criminal, that I probably partied, womanized, drank and smoked more than I should have earlier in life. I live a different life now.”

President-elect Donald Trump announced in November that he had nominated Gaetz to join his second administration as attorney general, a move that ruffled feathers among both Democratic and Republican members of Congress alike.

His tenure as nominee to lead the Justice Department was short-lived, though, and the Florida congressman withdrew his name from consideration just weeks later amid cratering support. Trump has since tapped Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi as a replacement.

Gaetz nonetheless resigned from the House and, though he was reelected in November, says he won’t rejoin the chamber in January.

As the Ethics Committee waffled on whether to publish a report on a former member of Congress — not unheard of but certainly rare — some lawmakers tried to force the panel to give up its findings. A resolution offered by Illinois Representative Sean Casten, which would have done just that, failed to pass the House earlier this month.

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