Congress

Ethics report alleges Gaetz paid 17-year-old for sex

Published

1 year ago

December 23, 2024

A yearslong House Ethics Committee investigation into former Rep. Matt Gaetz found “substantial evidence” that the Florida Republican committed statutory rape, solicited prostitutes and used illegal drugs, according to a copy of the report obtained by Blue Light News.

The report’s most explosive allegation, which Gaetz has long denied, is that he had sex twice with a 17-year-old girl at a party in July 2017, when he was 35 and serving in the House. Ethics Committee investigators found that he later paid the girl — part of a trend laid out in the report of him paying women after sexual encounters.

Gaetz has repeatedly denied that he broke any laws. “These claims would be destroyed in court — which is why they were never made in any court against me,” he told Blue Light News Friday morning.

But the committee’s 37-page report, which it decided to release in a secret vote earlier this month, alleges several instances of illegal conduct by President-elect Donald Trump’s one-time pick to serve as attorney general. Gaetz withdrew from consideration as Trump’s AG last month as the potential public release of the investigation weighed on his chances of Senate confirmation.

“The Committee concluded there was substantial evidence that Representative Gaetz violated House Rules, state and federal laws, and other standards of conduct prohibiting prostitution, statutory rape, illicit drug use, acceptance of impermissible gifts, the provision of special favors and privileges, and obstruction of Congress,” the ethics panel said in its report, adding that he “knowingly and willfully sought to impede and obstruct” the investigation.

The findings are poised to trigger shockwaves in Republican politics, in part because of Gaetz’s close ties to Trump. Gaetz, who resigned from Congress when Trump tapped him to lead the Justice Department, has been floated as a potential Florida governor candidate in 2026, and some Republicans believe he could still win an appointment in the second Trump administration. Gaetz on Sunday also publicly mulled running for Sen. Marco Rubio’s (R-Fla.) likely soon-to-be vacant seat. The report’s findings could make Gaetz’s political future difficult, though Trump has a history of dismissing accusations of criminal behavior against his allies.

The Ethics Committee investigation did not find “sufficient evidence”to show that Gaetz violated federal sex trafficking laws — an accusation that the Justice Department had also investigated. The DOJ did not charge Gaetz.

Gaetz has expressed regret that he once partied heavily and mistreated women, and has said he’s a different person now. In response to accusations that he slept with someone under 18, he has said“unequivocally no”.

In addition to allegations of sexual misconduct and drug use, the Ethics investigation found that Gaetz violated House rules by accepting excessive gifts, including transportation and lodging, in connection with a 2018 trip to the Bahamas. It also alleges that Gaetz violated another ethics rule in 2018 when he arranged for his top staffer to assist “a woman with whom he engaged in sexual activity in obtaining a passport, falsely indicating to the U.S. Department of State that she was a constituent.”

The Ethics Committee’s decision to release the report — a move that required a majority vote by a panel split evenly between Republicans and Democrats — is controversial within the House. Members of the committee and other lawmakers, including Speaker Mike Johnson, argued that the panel shouldn’t break with its regular practice of ending an inquiry after a member leaves the House. But a majority of panel members concluded it was still “in the public interest to release its findings.”

The release of the report means at least one Republican on the panel sided with Democrats in a secret vote. Gaetz has a number of enemies in the chamber, particularly after he spearheaded the ouster of former Speaker Kevin McCarthy. Gaetz blamed the former speaker for the Ethics probe that launched in April 2021, though the Floridian has denied that’s why he moved to boot McCarthy. And McCarthy, at the time, argued he had no control over the internal probe.

The statutory rape allegations

At a party in July 2017 at a Florida lobbyist’s home, Gaetz had sex twice with a 17 year-old, who had just completed her junior year of high school, according to the report. Florida’s age of consent is 18.

In the testimony of the now 24-year-old woman, referred to as “Victim A,” she said that she had sex with Gaetz at “least once in the presence of other party attendees” and that she received $400 in cash from Gaetz, which she understood as a payment for sex. The woman also testified that she had ingested ecstasy before the sexual encounter and said that Gaetz used cocaine that same night as well.

Ethics investigators received evidence that Gaetz was unaware that Victim A was underage “until more than a month after their first sexual encounters,” but noted that “statutory rape is a strict liability crime” — meaning it’s illegal whether he was aware of her age or not. Even after he learned that she was a minor, Gaetz kept in contact with her and then again “met up with her again for commercial sex” less than six months after she turned 18, the report alleges.

Investigators said they heard from the 17-year-old girl in question as well as “multiple individuals corroborating the allegation,” including some who have testified under oath. And it found that while Gaetz has denied wrongdoing, he has also “refused to answer specific questions relating to his interactions with Victim A.”

The panel also notes that while the statute of limitations to bring state law charges against Gaetz has passed, those same time limitations do not apply to the panel’s findings.

Prostitution accusations

Gaetz later boasted that he had slept with multiple women at the same party where he allegedly had sex with the 17-year-old girl, according to testimony the panel received from Joel Greenberg, one of Gaetz’s associates at the time. And it was not the only instance when he paid women after sexual encounters, according to the report.

Greenberg would meet younger women on SeekingArrangement.com, a site multiple women told the committee was used to connect with potential clients who would pay for companionship or sex. The women would then typically attend parties at Greenberg’s invitation and often engage in sex, getting compensated afterward.

“The Committee heard testimony from over half a dozen witnesses who attended parties, events, and trips with Representative Gaetz from 2017-2020. Nearly every young woman that the Committee interviewed confirmed that she was paid for sex by, or on behalf of, Representative Gaetz,” the report reads.

Some women also testified that they witnessed Gaetz take illicit drugs, including cocaine or ecstasy.

In one case, the report details a woman asking Gaetz for financial help paying her tuition when she was 21. Gaetz agreed and asked her to meet him at a hotel room so he could hand her a check, which she found “interesting” because he had normally used Venmo. When she arrived, Gaetz was there with Greenberg and a 20-year-old woman, who she had not expected to be there. She testified that there was an “expectation” of a “sexual encounter,” and the four of them had sex. Afterward, Gaetz handed her a $750 check with “tuition reimbursement” written on the memo line.

“The 21-year-old woman told the Committee she believed that the encounter ‘could potentially be a form of coercion because I really needed the money,’” the report reads.

The report states that all the women who testified described their sexual encounters with Gaetz as consensual, but the panel adds that there was “an exploitative power imbalance” at times. Investigators accused him of taking “advantage of the economic vulnerability of young women to lure them into sexual activity for which they received an average of a few hundred dollars after each encounter.” And the women said that Gaetz guilted them into sleeping with him or Greenberg at various times. One woman testified that she feels “violated” when she reflects on their encounter.

The committee also had documented evidence that Gaetz paid the women, including from “various peer-to-peer electronic payment services,” like Venmo, as well as checks and cash. It also found that Greenberg would sometimes pay the women for having sex with Gaetz and Gaetz would later reimburse him. The committee found Gaetz paid over $90,000 to 12 women between 2017 to 2020, not including his payments to Greenberg.

In one case, one of the women Greenberg met on SeekingArrangement.com and introduced to Gaetz in or around March 2017 later became Gaetz’s girlfriend. The report said they had an open relationship, and that she not only participated in sexual encounters with other women involved in sex-for-money arrangements, but she also acted “as an intermediary between Representative Gaetz and the women he paid for sex.”

This then-girlfriend invoked her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination in response to several questions, including the purpose of specific payments and whether Gaetz ever paid her money for sex. She was paid more than $60,000 dollars throughout their relationship, but the panel notes this does not include the $50,025 Gaetz paid her attorneys at the outset of the Justice Department’s investigation.

The committee noted that some of the payments to this one individual may be “legitimate in nature,” but based on assertion of her rights to other “evidence received from other sources, the Committee found substantial reason to believe that most of these payments were for such activity.”

The panel notes it was unable to interview every woman who received payments and were suspected of being part of the pay-for-sex arrangements. Some expressed fear of “retaliation or were unwilling to voluntarily relive their interactions with Representative Gaetz.”

The Bahamas Trip

A trip to the Bahamas, where Gaetz joined two other men who were reportedly linked to the medical marijuana industry and six women, was a focus of the Justice Department’s investigation into human trafficking. While the Ethics Committee report didn’t find evidence of those accusations, investigators found other issues with the trip.

The panel accused Gaetz of evading sharing documentation to prove he paid for his part of the lodging and a private flight for the September 2018 trip. Accepting any of that as a “gift” would violate House rules.

“Contrary to Representative Gaetz’s claims that he provided ‘substantial’ evidence to the Committee ‘demonstrating his innocence’ on this allegation, he provided no evidence showing how he paid for any travel costs other than his flight to the Bahamas, despite being given multiple opportunities to do so,” the report reads.

This was one of multiple cases where the committee said it found Gaetz “uncooperative.” The report says he provided “minimal documentation” in response to its record requests and blew off requests for both a voluntary interview and a subpoena for his testimony on July 11.

The committee concludes that Gaetz’s “attempts to mislead and deter the Committee from investigating him implicated federal criminal laws relating to false statements and obstruction of Congress. Even if Representative Gaetz’s obstructive conduct in this investigation did not rise to the level of a criminal violation, it was certainly inconsistent with the requirement that Members act in a manner that reflects creditably upon the House.”

Blaming the Justice Department for delays

The panel noted its report was delayed because Justice Department attorneys asked them to defer to their criminal probe, as is standard practice. After prosecutors concluded their probe with no charges, the Ethics Committee said they then failed to cooperate with any information requests.

“DOJ’s initial deferral request and subsequent lack of cooperation with the Committee’s review caused significant delays in the investigation; those delays were compounded by Representative Gaetz’s obstructive efforts,” the report reads.

The panel spends multiple pages of the report detailing its efforts to get the DOJ to turn over information. But despite multiple requests and even a subpoena seeking what the committee described as “particularized demands” — including “any exculpatory evidence” — they say prosecutors kept citing a non-legal basis that it does not release “non-public information about law enforcement investigations that do not result in charges.”

The panel typically doesn’t release its findings after a member leaves the House, as it notes in the report. But leaning on past precedent, the panel’s report said it “determined that it was in the public interest to release its findings even after a Member’s resignation from Congress,” while noting it did “not do so lightly.”

Congress

Senate to confirm Jay Clayton as soon as Thursday

Published

34 minutes ago

June 15, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

The Senate could vote as soon as Thursday on Jay Clayton’s nomination to serve as director of national intelligence — a lightning speed pace that will necessitate buy-in from all 100 senators.

Confirming Clayton could help shore up enough votes from Democrats to extend a government surveillance program that expired last Friday over opposition to Trump’s pick for acting director, Bill Pulte.

“He will come out of the committee Thursday, at least hopefully, and then if we get consent, we can move,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune said in an interview Monday about Clayton, who Trump only nominated for the job late last week.

Democrats “ought to be happy with Clayton,” said Thune, adding that he’s a “good” and “solid” pick.

Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, floated Sunday to CBS News that Clayton could be confirmed this week if every senator cooperates.

Senate Intelligence will hold a hearing Wednesday on Clayton’s nomination. If every member of the panel agrees, he could then get a committee vote Thursday. Confirming Clayton on the Senate floor hours later would require getting agreement from every senator to speed up the process. Opposition from a single member will punt Clayton’s confirmation to next week.

Confirming Clayton Thursday would, crucially, limit — and potentially circumvent — Pulte from becoming acting director of national intelligence, which Trump has slated to take place Friday, June 19.

The president’s decision to put Pulte in charge after Tulsi Gabbard’s departure at the helm of the Office of National Intelligence sparked bipartisan pushback, with Democrats saying they will withhold support for extending Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act while Pulte is in the acting role. Congress allowed the key government spy authority lapse last Friday without a deal.

Trump threw another curveball into a FISA extension over the weekend when he posted on social media that he was against reauthorizing Section 702 unless a GOP elections bill is attached. That bill, known as the SAVE America Act, does not have the votes to get through Congress.

Thune threw cold water Monday on tying the two issues together.

“Yeah, he’s, as you know, passionate about getting that done and wants to use every opportunity to take a shot at it,” Thune said of Trump and his desire to enact the elections bill.

But, Thune said, “we can’t get FISA done” if the policies are linked.

Congress

Senate eyes vote on updated housing affordability legislation

Published

3 hours ago

June 15, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Senate Majority Leader John Thune is planning to put an updated version of a bipartisan housing affordability bill on the Senate floor for a vote this week, according to two people familiar with the bill dynamics and two Senate Democratic aides granted anonymity to discuss ongoing plans.

The version of the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act that the Senate will vote on will include most of the House-passed language, including a provision restricting large institutional investors from buying single-family homes. The legislation would also add back Senate bills that were dropped from the House package that passed last month, the two people and the two aides said.

The Senate legislation comes after talks between Thune, Senate Banking Chair Tim Scott (R-S.C.) and ranking member Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). The updated Senate package was also discussed with the House and the White House, the aides said.

Still, it’s unclear if House leadership and the White House have signed off on the legislation.

The Senate and House have gone back and forth for months on language for a housing affordability bill as lawmakers on both sides look for a win to tout during a midterm election season dominated by cost-of-living issues.

Both chambers overwhelmingly passed their own versions of the housing bill — the Senate 89-10 in March, and the House 396-13 in May. The White House supported the Senate-passed bill and then backed the House-passed bill after it retained most of the Senate’s language on reining in private equity and other large Wall Street investors in the housing market — a top priority for President Donald Trump.

The Senate’s updated legislation would remove two of the House’s community banking deregulation bills due to budget scoring concerns, said two of the people familiar: two bills that would modify the Federal Deposit Insurance Act around failed insured depository institutions. The Senate bill also added back a provision to authorize the Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery program for seven years, as opposed to a permanent reauthorization in the Senate’s March legislation.

The Senate additionally re-inserted several upper-chamber priorities, including the BUILD NOW Act, which would incentivize communities to build more housing through the Community Development Block Grant program; the Rental Assistance Demonstration bill, which would raise the cap on housing authorities to convert voucher-based assistance; the Moving to Work bill, which would aim to add a new cohort of MTW public housing agencies; and the VALID Act, which would require Federal Housing Administration mortgage disclosures to include cost comparison information for veterans.

The package retains core wins for the leaders of both the Senate Banking and House Financial Services committees and their members and reflects input from all four leaders of those panels, one of the people familiar said.

Congress

Capitol Agenda: The new faces of the Freedom Caucus

Published

6 hours ago

June 15, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

The House Freedom Caucus is suddenly confronting an unsettled future after more than a decade at the center of GOP politics on Capitol Hill.

Some of its most prominent members are leaving Congress next year after seeking higher office, including former chair Rep. Andy Biggs and several media-friendly voices like Reps. Chip Roy, Byron Donalds and Ralph Norman.

Meanwhile, the group’s current chair, Rep. Andy Harris, is term-limited.

Who will step in to fill the shuffling ranks and maintain the caucus’ role as a hard-right vanguard is very much in question — especially as the group faces a potential shift to a Democratic House majority, which has historically made them less pivotal, and the looming transition to a Republican Party without a President Donald Trump.

The group — which is no stranger to reinventing itself — has a number of relatively unknown members ready to become the new faces of the hard right in the House.

— ERIC BURLISON: The second-term Missouri congressman and current HFC board member said he is considering running to be the next chair.

Last summer he was a vocal member demanding the full release of the Jeffrey Epstein files and has become a leading Republican pushing for more information on UFOs.

— ANDREW CLYDE: Another board member, Clyde has amassed significant power by Freedom Caucus standards by winning seats on the Appropriations and Budget panels.

He said in an interview he had not yet thought about running for chair but noted that “you don’t have to be the chairman to have outsized influence.”

— BRANDON GILL: This Texas freshman, the youngest sitting House Republican, is already seen as a rising star in the House GOP.

He’s made a name for himself through provocative social media posts and splashy legislative moves, such as seeking to impeach James Boasberg, the federal judge who ruled against some of Trump’s deportations last year.

Gill has said he wants to emulate Rep. Jim Jordan, the only founding member of the caucus still serving in the chamber.

— CLAY HIGGINS: Another board member and a more senior member of the group, Higgins said he has not ruled out seeking the chair post but is also “not interested in campaigning” for the job.

Higgins was the only lawmaker to oppose the release of the Epstein files. He said in an interview he’s hoping the group focuses more on policymaking in its next iteration rather than obstructing leadership prerogatives.

— ANDY OGLES: Inside the HFC, Ogles has emerged as a serious force over two terms, with his name floated for chair even before the end of his first term.

He also did not rule out running for chair or another caucus leadership position in a recent interview.

What else we’re watching:

— THUNE RACES TO BREAK SPY POWERS LOGJAM: Senate Majority Leader John Thune is racing to try to confirm the next director of national intelligence and end a stand off over extending a key surveillance power before members break for two weeks. The Senate Intelligence Committee will hold a hearing for Jay Clayton Wednesday — less than a week after the chamber formally received the nomination from the White House. Getting Clayton confirmed is a crucial step to unlocking Congress’ willingness to renew Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

— ANTI-FRAUD OPTIONS FOR RECONCILIATION 3.0: Republican leaders say proposals to crack down on fraud in federal safety net programs could be included in another reconciliation package this year. Turns out, a menu of options is developing in plain sight: Just look at the stack of about a dozen bills the House has passed in recent weeks to prevent waste and abuse.

Jordain Carney and Jennifer Scholtes contributed to this report.