Matt Gaetz arrives before president-elect Donald Trump speaks during an America First Policy Institute gala at his Mar-a-Lago estate on Nov. 14 in Palm Beach, Fla.Alex Brandon/The Associated Press
Two women told House Ethics Committee investigators that former Representative Matt Gaetz, who has been tapped to be attorney-general in the next Trump administration, paid them for sex, and one of the women testified she saw him having sex with a 17-year-old, according to a lawyer for the women.
Joel Leppard, who represents the two women, described the testimony his clients gave the House ethics panel, which has been investigating the Florida Republican over allegations of sex trafficking involving a 17-year-old girl. The Justice Department separately ended its own sex-trafficking investigation into Mr. Gaetz without criminal charges.
The House committee’s investigation effectively ended last week when Mr. Gaetz resigned from Congress after Donald Trump nominated him to lead the Justice Department.
Mr. Gaetz has denied ever having a relationship with a 17-year-old, and any other wrongdoing. A lawyer who has represented Mr. Gaetz said he would not answer any questions when reached Tuesday by the Associated Press.
A Trump transition spokesperson said Tuesday that they are “baseless allegations intended to derail the second Trump administration,” adding that the Justice Department “investigated Gaetz for years and cleared him of wrongdoing.”
Mr. Gaetz is facing mounting scrutiny over the allegations, which threaten to complicate his path to be confirmed as the nation’s top federal law enforcement officer. Several Republicans in the Senate have expressed concern about his nomination or refused to say publicly yet whether they will support him.
Mr. Leppard told ABC News, CNN and other news outlets that one of his clients saw Mr. Gaetz having sex with her then-17-year-old friend at a party in 2017, while Mr. Gaetz was serving in Congress. The lawyer told NBC News that his client testified she didn’t think Mr. Gaetz knew the girl was underage, stopped their relationship when he found out and did not resume it until after she turned 18.
Both of Mr. Leppard’s clients told House investigators that they were paid for sex by Mr. Gaetz, sometimes through Venmo, the lawyer said.
Mr. Trump’s pick of Mr. Gaetz has roiled many career Justice Department lawyers, who privately have expressed concern about having him lead the same agency that investigated the sex-trafficking allegations involving underage girls. Mr. Trump, who has railed against the Justice Department over the two criminal cases brought against him, has described Mr. Gaetz as the right person to “root out the systemic corruption” within the agency.
The House Ethics Committee began its review of Mr. Gaetz in April, 2021, deferred its work in response to a Justice Department request, and renewed its work shortly after Mr. Gaetz announced that the Justice Department had ended its sex-trafficking investigation.
Over the summer, the committee provided an unusual public update into its long-running investigation, saying its review now includes whether Mr. Gaetz engaged in sexual misconduct and illicit drug use, accepted improper gifts and sought to obstruct government investigations of his conduct.
The House’s investigation is separate from the Justice Department’s sex-trafficking probe, which began under Attorney-General Bill Barr during Mr. Trump’s first term focused on allegations that Mr. Gaetz and onetime political ally Joel Greenberg paid underage girls and escorts or offered them gifts in exchange for sex.
Mr. Greenberg, a fellow Republican who served as the tax collector in Florida’s Seminole County, admitted as part of a plea deal with prosecutors in 2021 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. Mr. Greenberg was sentenced in late 2022 to 11 years in prison.
Federal investigators scrutinized a trip Mr. 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 received gifts to have sex with the men, according to people familiar with the matter who were not allowed to publicly discuss the investigation. Prosecutors also investigated whether Mr. Gaetz and his associates tried to secure government jobs for some of the women, and scrutinized Mr. Gaetz’s connections to the medical marijuana sector, including whether his associates sought to influence legislation Mr. Gaetz sponsored, the people have said.