Woman testified that Matt Gaetz had sex with her when she was 17 and in high school: report

The congressional committee investigating Matt Gaetz The election of President-elect Donald Trump as Attorney Generalreportedly interviewed a woman who said Gaetz had sex with her when she was a 17-year-old high school student, according to ABC news.

Gaetz, a Republican and staunch Trump defender from Florida, resigned from Congress on Wednesday Trump announced Gaetz’s nomination as attorney general. His resignation will end a yearslong investigation into Gaetz by the House Ethics Committee. The committee investigated whether Gaetz engaged in sexual misconduct and illegal drug use, accepted inappropriate gifts and tried to obstruct government investigations into his conduct.

According to multiple reports, committee members are expected to vote on Friday on whether to make their findings public, but it is unclear whether that can happen now that Gaetz has left Congress and the committee no longer has jurisdiction to conduct the investigation.

John Clune, a lawyer representing an alleged victim of Gaetz, is calling for the commission’s report to be made public “immediately.”

“The likely appointment of Mr. Gaetz as attorney general is a perverse development in a truly dark series of events,” Clune said on X. “She was a high school student and there were witnesses.”

Republican senators say they also want to see the report from the House Ethics Committee. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Thursday he “absolutely” wants to see the committee’s findings.

“I don’t want to have any limitations at all on what the Senate could consider,” Cornyn said.

The House Ethics Committee has been investigating Gaetz since 2021, but paused when the Justice Department conducted its own Gaetz investigation into the sex trafficking of young girls. The ethics committee resumed its work in May 2023, shortly after Gaetz announced that the Justice Department had ended its investigation without filing charges against him.

Gaetz has strongly denied all allegations.

Gaetz told Fox News Digital in response to the new report: “These allegations are fabricated and would constitute false testimony before Congress. This false smear following a three-year criminal investigation should be viewed with great skepticism.”

Gaetz is facing opposition from the Republican Party

Gaetz has been mired in scandals for years that threaten to derail his appointment as the nation’s top federal law enforcement official. Hours after the announcement was made Wednesday, he was already facing Republican opposition.

“I don’t see him as a serious candidate,” said Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska.

Another Republican senator was more blunt in an interview with Fox News Digital.

“He will never be confirmed,” the Republican senator, who was granted anonymity to speak freely, told Fox News Digital.

Sex trafficking investigation by Matt Gaetz

The federal sex trafficking investigation that began under Attorney General Bill Barr during Trump’s first term focused on allegations that Gaetz and former political ally Joel Greenberg paid underage girls and escorts or offered them gifts in exchange for sex.

Greenberg, a fellow Republican who served as a tax collector in Florida’s Seminole County, admitted in 2021 as part of a plea deal with prosecutors that he paid women and an underage girl to have sex with him and other men. The men were not identified in court documents when he pleaded guilty. Greenberg was sentenced to 11 years in prison in late 2022.

Federal investigators were looking into a trip Gaetz took to the Bahamas with a group of women and a doctor who donated to his campaign, and whether the women were paid or given gifts to have sex with the men, according to people familiar with the matter and they are not allowed to discuss the research publicly. Prosecutors also were investigating whether Gaetz and his associates tried to secure government jobs for some women, and were investigating Gaetz’s connections to the medical marijuana industry, including whether his associates tried to influence legislation that Gaetz sponsored, the people said.