What’s in Matt Gaetz’s House Ethics Report

The House Ethics Committee’s report on Donald Trump ally Matt Gaetz, released Monday, revealed fresh details about the former congressman’s alleged conduct, at least one new allegation and information about the panel’s investigation.

From at least 2017 to 2020, the committee found that the former Florida congressman regularly paid women to “participate in sexual acts,” had sex with a 17-year-old girl, used or possessed illegal drugs, accepted gifts outside the House of Representatives, and helped a woman receive passport, the report says.

The 42-year-old was first elected to the House of Representatives as a Republican in 2016.

He resigned in November – days before the report was released and after Trump announced him as his nominee for US attorney general. Goetz withdrew from the proceedings a week later.

He denied the committee’s findings and accused it of conducting an unfair investigation.

Here are four parts of the long-awaited report that stand out.

Investigators said Goetz paid more than $90,000 (£71,843) to the women for sex and drugs, but created a complex web of transactions that were difficult to trace, the report said.

“The committee was unable to fully determine the extent to which Rep. Getz’s payments to the women were compensation for engaging in sexual activities with him,” the report said.

He is believed to have often used his friend Joel Greenberg, who is currently serving an 11-year sentence for crimes he and Goetz committed, and logged into Greenberg’s account on SeekingArrangement.com, which bills itself as a “luxury dating site.” to communicate with young women.

Goetz also paid women directly, sometimes through platforms like Venmo, according to the report. But the committee said he often used another person’s PayPal account or an account linked to an email address with a fake name.

He also hid the payments, the panel wrote. In one example, he gave a college student a check made out to “cash” with “tuition reimbursement” on the memo line. The woman said she received it after a group meeting that “could potentially have been a form of coercion because I really needed the money.”

Goetz posted on social media that he gave money to women he was involved with as gifts rather than payment. The committee found that the two women, aged 27 and 25, did not see their relationship as transactional.

Another woman, believed to be his girlfriend, invoked her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination when asked if she had been paid for sex or drugs or to pay others.

The committee tried to prove that Goetz often paid for sex, using evidence such as a text message in which he reportedly refused a woman’s request to send her money after he accused her of “dumping” one night him. The woman then claimed she was “treated differently” than other women he paid for sex.

In another message, his then-girlfriend said she and Greenberg were “a little tight on cash flow” and asked the group of women “if this could be more of a customer appreciation week.”

A few months later, according to the committee, she wrote: “By the way, Matt also mentioned that last time he would be a little generous for the sake of ‘customer appreciation.’

The committee also said Goetz bought illegal drugs or reimbursed people for them.

It gives examples of his alleged use of cocaine and ecstasy/MDMA, but focuses on what appeared to be a strong marijuana habit. He allegedly asked women to bring marijuana cartridges to meetings and events and created an email account with a fake name to buy marijuana.

According to the report, the trip he took to the Bahamas “was paid for by an associate of Representative Goetz with ties to the medical marijuana industry, who allegedly also paid for the escort of female escorts.”

One woman felt that the use of drugs and alcohol at parties impaired her ability to “really know what was going on or fully accept it”.

“Indeed, nearly every woman interviewed by the committee could not recall the details of at least one or more events they attended with Representative Goetz and attributed it to the use of drugs or alcohol,” the report said.

His then-girlfriend, who was 21 when they met and was “earning tens of thousands of dollars” for their two-year relationship, was often involved in meetings with women and acted as an intermediary, the report said.

The woman told the committee she was 17 when she had sex with Goetz twice at a party in 2017 – at least once in front of other people – while under the influence of ecstasy. The woman, who had just graduated from the first year of high school, then received $400 from him.

She also told the panel that she did not tell Goetz that she was a minor, and the committee found no evidence that the former congressman knew she was a minor.

In 2021, Greenberg pleaded guilty to sex trafficking a girl. According to the plea agreement, Greenberg paid for sex with the minor and introduced her to other male adults who engaged in commercial sex with her.

Goetz also allegedly ordered his chief of staff to expedite a passport application for a woman he slept with who he said was a voter in his district. He also allegedly gave her $1,000.

Goetz violated House rules against using his position for special favors, according to the committee, which wrote: “The woman was not a constituent of his, and the case was not handled in the same manner as similar passport assistance cases.”

The committee devoted a significant portion of the report to detailing how Goetz allegedly obstructed the investigation, including refusing to produce evidence it said would “exonerate” him.

The report concluded that he “repeatedly sought to divert, deter or mislead the Committee in order to prevent exposure of his actions.”

Goetz, who accused the committee of being “gunned” against him and leaking information to the press, claimed the group was working on behalf of former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, according to the report. Last year, he helped lead the effort to oust then-Speaker McCarthy.

While Goetz claimed he had “voluntarily produced tens of thousands of records,” he provided the committee with “only a couple of hundred records, more than 90% of which were either inappropriate or publicly available,” according to the report.

One sticking point was a trip to the Bahamas, where the committee said he withheld information. In the end, he concluded that he had violated the gift rules because the trip was too expensive.

The committee also cited the Justice Department’s investigation into the allegations against Goetz as a reason for the delay.

Some witnesses asked the committee to use statements they had given to the department, but he refused to share them because they did not bring charges and because he said it could deter future witnesses in other cases from coming forward.

The report ends with a one-page statement from ethics committee chairman Michael Guest “on behalf of the dissenting members of the committee,” who are not named.

Those members do not dispute the committee’s findings, but they do not agree with the release of the report after Goetz left the House, which has not happened since 2006, they wrote.

This “departs from long-standing Committee practice, opens the Committee to unwarranted criticism, and will be seen by some as an attempt to weaponize the Committee process.”