House Ethics report finds evidence Matt Gaetz paid for sex and drugs

Our live coverage of the House Ethics Committee’s report on Matt Gaetz has ended. Follow the latest updates or read through the updates below.

Matt Gaetz is seen outside theUS Capitol after the last votes before the August recess on Thursday, July 25.

The House Ethics Committee found evidence that former Rep. Matt Gaetz paid tens of thousands of dollars to women for sex or drugs on at least 20 occasions, including paying a 17-year-old girl for sex in 2017, according to a final draft of the panel’s report on the Florida Republican, obtained by CNN.

During the yearslong investigation, Gaetz has vehemently denied he ever paid anyone for sex. A friend of Gaetz, Christopher Dorworth, says the report contains “false statements,” and his lawyer asked the committee to retract its report, pointing to discrepancies in a three-page letter.

Gaetz filed a lawsuit Monday asking a federal judge to block the official release of the long-awaited ethics report about his potential misconduct while in office. However, he filed the lawsuit around the same time that CNN and other outlets reported on a draft of the report’s findings about his alleged sexual misconduct and drug use, and within hours of the lawsuit being filed, the committee officially released the report on its website. Gaetz later said in a court filing this makes his lawsuit moot.

The lawyer for two of the women who testified in the House Ethics Committee’s probe of Gaetz said in a statement that the committee’s report vindicates their testimony.

Here’s some of the details that were in the ethics report made public:

Christopher Dorworth, a Florida lobbyist and friend of Gaetz, says the House Ethics Committee’s report today contains “false statements.”

R. Alex Andrade, an attorney for Dorworth, asked the committee to retract its report, and pointed out in a three-page letter to the committee what he says were three “discrepancies” in the committee’s statements.

In one, Andrade says the committee was wrong to say Gaetz invited people to Dorworth’s house for a July 2017 party — even if Gaetz may have been present at the house that day for a party.

Another “discrepancy” regards whether it was fair to say the committee “confronted” Dorworth with cell phone records during his House deposition.

The lawyer also takes issue with the committee saying he didn’t respond to a request for Dorworth to clarify his testimony about the July 2017 party. Andrade says he emailed committee staff with documents that supported Dorworth’s public statements.

Former Rep. Matt Gaetz said in a court filing Monday afternoon that the lawsuit he brought against the House Ethics Committee to block the release of its report on him is now moot, due to the committee’s “unprecedented and procedurally defective decision” to publish the report.

The filing was in a response to a request from the judge that he weigh in on whether the case could still go forward given the report’s formal release.

Gaetz filed the lawsuit Monday morning around the time that CNN and other outlets reported on a draft of the report laying out the findings of the yearslong ethics investigation — but before the report had been officially rolled out.

“Plaintiff concurs that the instant action has been mooted,” Gaetz’s lawyers wrote in the new filing.

The House Ethics Committee released an 11-page ledger detailing payments from accounts said to be belong to former Rep. Matt Gaetz, that were sent to women who may have provided him with drugs or sex.

“From 2017 to 2020, Representative Gaetz made tens of thousands of dollars in payments to women that the Committee determined were likely in connection with sexual activity and/or drug use,” the report said.

The former Florida congressman has denied ever paying anyone for sex, and has stated that allegations of “illicit drug use” were also false. In a post on X last week, Gaetz said that, “In my single days, I often sent funds to women I dated - even some I never dated but who asked.” Still, he denied many of the committee’s claims and said that the committee was relying on “non-credible” witnesses.

Gaetz sometimes used cash or checks to pay the women, the report said, but lawmakers alleged that he also used a pseudonymous email to set up accounts on various cash apps and that those accounts were used to transmit money to women as well.

“Representative Gaetz appears to have initially set up the pseudonymous e-mail account in order to make payments relating to cannabis products, and then also used it to make payments to women,” the ethics panel said.

The ledger released by the committee shows a range of descriptions that were used when sending the payments. They include “groceries,” “dry clean,” “dinner” and “reimbursement,” as well as “Relaxation” and “Being my friend.”

The ledger includes payments made to Joel Greenberg, whom the committee claims was sometimes reimbursed by Gaetz for payments to women. Greenberg is former Gaetz friend who cooperated with the now-closed federal inquiry into Gaetz that ended without any charges. Greenberg pleaded guilty in 2022 to sex trafficking of a minor, in connection with the Gaetz-related allegations of underage sex.

Text messages released Monday as part of the House Ethics Committee report about former Rep. Matt Gaetz allegedly show him asking women to get him drugs.

Here’s some instances:

“Hey Matt, would I be able to ask you guys a huge favor??” the woman wrote. “Also I’m back home and have refills for you.”

The committee report says one woman testified that these phrases included reference to ecstasy. The panel “was not able to determine how and when Representative Gaetz paid for ‘party favors’ such as ecstasy and cocaine,” according to the report.

In a related lawsuit filed Monday morning, Gaetz said allegations that he “engaged in illicit drug use, including the use or distribution of cocaine and marijuana,” were false.

Text messages made public Monday by the House Ethics Committee showed that women complained that former Rep. Matt Gaetz had not paid them adequately for their alleged encounters with him.

During the years-long investigation, Gaetz has vehemently denied he ever paid anyone for sex.

After one woman texted Gaetz asking for more money, according to the committee’s report, Gaetz had claimed that that the woman had only given him a “drive by.”

The apparent exchange is included in the report’s appendix, with the unidentified woman sharing with another person a screenshot of text messages between her and a person marked in her phone as “Marissa.” In its report, the committee said the woman testified that she had saved Gaetz as “Marissa” in her phone in order to be discreet.

In another exchange shared by the committee, apparently between two women, one told the other that “Matt” never paid her and asked the other woman how much she was paid. The other woman said $400. The other woman went on to suggest, seemingly jokingly, that the first woman ask Gaetz for the money while she was giving him oral sex, but “Before you have sex w him for sure.”

In another released text exchange, a woman shared with another person a screenshot of a text she sent “Joel” — said by the committee to be Joel Greenberg, the former friend of Gaetz who was convicted of several federal crimes and is currently in prison. The texts show the woman complaining that Joel was sending her less money than what he initially promised her.

The committee report said Greenberg often sent women money on behalf of Gaetz for the alleged sexual encounters with the former congressman. Greenberg pleaded guilty in 2022 to federal sex trafficking, for paying an underage girl for sex, in a case related to the Gaetz matter.

In the text exchange released by the committee, the other person asked the woman what Greenberg had said in a response. “He said he’s waiting on Matt to send him more lol” the woman told the other person.

The lawyer for two of the women who testified in the House Ethics Committee’s probe of former Rep. Matt Gaetz said in a statement that the committee’s report vindicates their testimony.

The House Ethics Committee report, released publicly on Monday, found Gaetz “violated House Rules and other standards of conduct prohibiting prostitution, statutory rape, illicit drug use, impermissible gifts, special favors or privileges, and obstruction of Congress.”

Gaetz has said the committee’s allegations are false. He filed an unsuccessful lawsuit earlier Monday morning to try to stop the release of the report, writing that he denied the committee’s allegations in writing earlier this year and was given no opportunity to “respond to any report or investigative conclusions.”

Leppard told CNN last month that he represented two women who testified to the House Ethics Committee that they were paid for “sexual favors” by Gaetz.

Additionally, one of the women testified to the congressional panel that she witnessed Gaetz having sex with her then-underage friend in 2017, Leppard said. Gaetz has denied having sex with an underage girl.

The House Ethics Committee on Monday released a report that found evidence that former Rep. Matt Gaetz paid thousands of dollars for sex and drugs, including allegedly paying a 17-year-old girl for sex in 2017.

Read the full report.

Rep. Matt Gaetz is seen during a House Judiciary Committee hearing in 2019.

Former Rep. Matt Gaetz filed a lawsuit Monday asking a federal judge to block the official release of a long-awaited House Ethics Committee report about his potential misconduct while in office.

Gaetz filed the lawsuit around the same time that CNN and other outlets reported on a draft of the report’s findings about his alleged sexual misconduct and drug use — so the practical impact of his lawsuit is unclear. Further, within hours of the lawsuit being filed, the committee officially released the report on its website, making his lawsuit essentially moot.

In the lawsuit, which was filed in Washington, DC, against the committee and its chair, Gaetz claimed releasing the report would cause “immediate, severe and irreversible” damage to his reputation, in part because “media coverage would be immediate and widespread.” He also claimed he wasn’t notified of the panel’s plans to release the report, nor was he provided copies of the materials.

“As such, Plaintiff has been afforded no opportunity to respond to any report or investigative conclusions,” the lawsuit says.

Gaetz lawyers said he has “frequently and vehemently declared his innocence regarding the alleged misconduct” and had asked the committee to “cease their investigation and provide him appropriate due process rights.” He said the Republican-run panel has been “unresponsive” to those demands.

CNN has reached out to Gaetz’s attorneys about the report. The House Ethics Committee declined to comment on the lawsuit.

In a post on X after filing the lawsuit, Gaetz said, “they did this to me in a Christmas Eve-Eve report and not in a courtroom of any kind where I could present evidence and challenge witnesses.” He further said “giving funds to someone you are dating” is not prostitution, citing testimony from a woman who said she didn’t charge him for sex.

“The Committee’s apparent intention to release its report after explicitly acknowledging it lacks jurisdiction over former members, its failure to follow constitutional notions of due process, and failure to adhere to its own procedural rules and precedent represents an unprecedented overreach that threatens fundamental constitutional rights and established procedural protections,” the lawsuit states.

Matt Gaetz filed a civil complaint in federal court Monday morning to halt the release of a report on his conduct from the House Ethics Committee, claiming he was not notified of the panel’s plans to release the report nor was he provided copies of the materials.

“As such, Plaintiff has been afforded no opportunity to respond to any report or investigative conclusions of Defendants,” the complaint reads.

“Plaintiff has frequently and vehemently declared his innocence regarding the alleged misconduct, and requested Defendants cease their investigation and provide him appropriate due process rights.”

Gaetz claims the panel has been “unresponsive” to those demands.

CNN has reached out to Gaetz’s attorneys about the report.

Former Rep. Matt Gaetz is seen at the Capitol in Washington, DC, in 2023.

Shortly after being nominated as president, Donald Trump announced he had picked then Rep. Matt Gaetz as his attorney general.

The choice raised a few eyebrows and caused days of debate, not least because the Representative had been investigated by the Justice Department for allegations of whether he engaged in sexual misconduct, used illicit drugs, “shared inappropriate images or videos on the House floor, misused state identification records, converted campaign funds to personal use, and/or accepted a bribe, improper gratuity, or impermissible gifts.”

In addition to the DOJ’s investigation, the House Ethics Committee investigated. But before the report could be released, Republicans on the House Ethics Committee fell in line behind GOP leaders and voted not to release the results.

Ultimately, despite his attempts to convince the Republican party he was best bet for attorney general, Trump called Gaetz on November 21 with bad news: he did not have the votes in the Senate to win confirmation.

Shortly after the call, Gaetz — who quit his seat in the House the day Trump announced he’d selected him to helm the Justice Department — wrote on social media that he was withdrawing and that his nomination “was unfairly becoming a distraction.”

“There is no time to waste on a needlessly protracted Washington scuffle, thus I’ll be withdrawing my name from consideration to serve as Attorney General. Trump’s DOJ must be in place and ready on Day 1,” Gaetz wrote.

Former Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz will join One America News Network (OAN) as an anchor in January, the network announced this month.

“Matt Gaetz has earned a reputation as a relentless champion of conservative values, taking on entrenched Washington bureaucrats and exposing government overreach,” the network said on December 10.

Gaetz, who will host a one-hour political talk show in the primetime slot of 9 p.m. ET on weekday nights, said at the time that he “couldn’t be more thrilled to join OAN’s forward-thinking team and be part of this revolutionary expansion.”

Some context: The addition of Gaetz as an OAN anchor is a big gain for the far-right network, given that most of the channel’s personalities are not well known. OAN has established itself as perhaps the most extreme of the pro-Trump news outlets. The little-watched network regularly gives airtime to baseless conspiracy theories that support Trump.

Former Rep. Matt Gaetz speaks at the AmericaFest 2024 conference sponsored by Turning Point in Phoenix on Sunday.

Former Rep. Matt Gaetz, who withdrew his nomination to be President-elect Donald Trump’s attorney general amid concerns from senators about allegations of sexual misconduct, said his nomination was thwarted by “anti-Trump forces” in the Senate.

Gaetz told Trump supporters gathered ahead of his remarks at a Turning Point USA event in Phoenix, Arizona on Sunday he “saw the writing on the wall” after meeting with senators about his nomination.

Gaetz was investigated by the House Ethics Committee over allegations of sexual misconduct and obstruction. The House Ethics Committee found evidence that former Rep. Matt Gaetz paid tens of thousands of dollars to women for sex or drugs on at least 20 occasions, including paying a 17-year-old girl for sex in 2017, according to a final draft of the panel’s report on the Florida Republican, obtained by CNN.

Gaetz, who resigned from Congress after being nominated for attorney general, said he may consider running for Senate in Florida for the vacancy left by Sen. Marco Rubio, who has been nominated as Trump’s secretary of state. He also expressed interest in being appointed as a special prosecutor to investigate insider trading in Congress.

“It seems I may not have enough support in the United States Senate. Maybe I’ll just run for Marco Rubio’s vacant seat in the United States Senate and join some of those folks.”

Former Rep. Matt Gaetz looks on during a news conference on Capitol Hill in 2023.

The House Ethics Committee found evidence that former Rep. Matt Gaetz paid tens of thousands of dollars to women for sex or drugs on at least 20 occasions, including paying a 17-year-old girl for sex in 2017, according to a final draft of the panel’s report on the Florida Republican, obtained by CNN.

The committee concluded in its bombshell document that Gaetz violated Florida state laws, including the state’s statutory rape law, as the GOP-led panel chose to take the rare step of releasing a report about a former member who resigned from Congress.

The panel investigated transactions Gaetz personally made, often using PayPal or Venmo, to more than a dozen women during his time in Congress, according to the report. Investigators also focused on a 2018 trip to the Bahamas – which they said “violated the House gift rule” – during which he “engaged in sexual activity” with multiple women, including one who described the trip itself as “the payment” for sex on the trip. On the same trip, he also took ecstasy, one woman on the trip told the committee.

CNN has reached out to Gaetz for comment.

Gaetz has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing and has pointed to the Justice Department declining to bring charges against him in 2023.

The US Capitol is pictured in Washington, DC, on December 19.

House Republicans had voted on December 5 to block a Democrat-led effort to release the Ethics Committee report on allegations against former GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida.

The House took a step to effectively shut down a resolution from Democrats that would have required the public release of the report. House GOP leaders sidelined the effort by Democrats by setting up a vote to refer the resolution to the committee.

The committee later secretly voted to release its report — a decision that suggests that some Republicans decided to side with Democrats on the matter.

Gaetz, who has denied any wrongdoing, withdrew from consideration as President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for attorney general last month after it became clear he didn’t have the votes in the Senate to win confirmation. The former congressman had faced headwinds on Capitol Hill in his bid to lock down sufficient support, and some Senate Republicans had called for the release of the ethics report as part of the vetting process.

Then-Rep. Matt Gaetz attends the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee on July 16.

A woman who said she had sex with then-Rep. Matt Gaetz told the House Ethics Committee she had two sexual encounters with him at one party in 2017, sources familiar with her testimony told CNN in November.

The woman, who was 17 years old at the time, testified that the second sexual encounter included another adult woman. She also testified to both sexual encounters in a civil deposition as part of a related lawsuit, sources said.

Gaetz has repeatedly denied having sex with a minor and was not charged after the Justice Department investigated these alleged encounters.

The other woman has denied participating in the alleged second encounter, according to multiple sources familiar with her ethics testimony.

The Justice Department closed its investigation of Gaetz last year after prosecutors recommended that no criminal charges be brought against him. The House Ethics Committee revived its investigation of the Florida lawmaker once DOJ concluded its case and is facing mounting pressure to release its final report.

Allegations against Gaetz also have surfaced as part of a civil dispute in federal court in Florida. The deposition from the woman remains under seal, but her allegations were described during another deposition that is public record. At one point, attorneys recounted that she had testified having sex with Gaetz on an air hockey table at the house party while the homeowner watched.

An attorney for the woman had called for the ethics report to be released, noting that his client was a high school student at the time and saying there were witnesses.

Joel Leppard, an attorney who represents two other women who were witnesses in the House Ethics Committee probe, said one of his clients testified that she witnessed Gaetz having sex with a minor. Leppard said his client told the committee she did not believe Gaetz knew at the time that her friend was underage.

Both of Leppard’s clients sat for closed-door testimony before the committee. He has said that both them testified that Gaetz paid them for “sexual favors.”

The House Ethics Committee report on former Rep. Matt Gaetz is expected to be released today, two sources familiar with the timing told CNN.

The report concludes a years-long probe into numerous allegations against Gaetz, including whether he engaged in sexual misconduct, used illicit drugs, “shared inappropriate images or videos on the House floor, misused state identification records, converted campaign funds to personal use, and/or accepted a bribe, improper gratuity, or impermissible gifts,” the committee said in June.

Gaetz has denied all the allegations.

The House Ethics Committee secretly voted this month to release its report. The vote was a stark reversal for the panel that had voted along party lines in late November not to release the results of the investigation. The decision suggests that some Republicans decided to side with Democrats on the matter.

When the committee initially voted to shelve the report, Gaetz was President-elect Donald Trump’s choice to be attorney general. Gaetz later withdrew himself from consideration for the Senate-confirmed post, though he maintains frosty relations with many in his party and is still active in GOP politics.