In a written statement, a witness alleges that Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) attended a party in 2017 where illegal drugs and an underage girl were present.
ABC News reports that the House Ethics Committee received the statement as part of its investigation into whether Gaetz used illegal drugs while in Congress. The statement was not specifically written for the committee and does not primarily focus on Gaetz. A woman claims to have attended a 2017 party in Florida where the congressman was present. She says she saw alcohol, cocaine, and MDMA at the party and saw the then-minor, who Gaetz has been accused of having sex with when she was 17, naked at the party. The woman’s statement does not mention if she knew about Gaetz’s alleged sexual abuse of the then-minor.
A spokesperson for Gaetz told ABC News that the congressman did not remember being at the party and had not used illegal drugs since becoming a member of Congress.
Gaetz was under investigation by the Justice Department to determine if he violated federal sex-trafficking laws by paying for the then 17-year-old girl to travel across state lines with him. The DOJ concluded the investigation in February 2023 without charging Gaetz, reportedly due to credibility issues with two key witnesses.
The House Ethics Committee reopened its investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct, illicit drug use, and potential lobbying violations by Gaetz. The committee had paused its investigation while the DOJ conducted its own. The committee is reaching out to the woman with whom Gaetz allegedly had sex when she was a minor, and to Joel Greenberg, a former close friend of Gaetz who pleaded guilty in May 2021 to having sex with an underage girl and introducing her to other adult men who also had sex with her while she was underage.
Last year, former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) suggested that Gaetz’s move to oust him from the speakership was driven by McCarthy’s failure to halt the House Ethics Committee’s investigation of Gaetz. Gaetz reportedly said that he pushed to remove McCarthy as speaker for reviving the investigation individually, according to The New Republic.
. McCarthy told Georgetown University students that he didn’t stop an ethics complaint involving a 17-year-old because it was illegal and he didn’t want to intervene. He stated that Gaetz wanted him to influence it.
Gaetz consistently received a score of “0” on HRC’s Congressional Scorecard, indicating his strong opposition to LGBTQ+ equality. He not only voted against LGBTQ+ equal rights but also vocally opposed LGBTQ+ individuals.
He has referred to individuals in the LGBTQ+ community as “degenerate” at least twice, stating that his legislation on school prayer will prevent LGBTQ+ identities from being present in schools. He has criticized the military for permitting transgender individuals to serve their country. He accused USAID, the federal agency that oversees foreign aid and developmental assistance to other countries, of having a “perverse ideology” for endorsing LGBTQ+ individuals. He also got the Air Force to close down a drag event on a military base after he expressed discontent about it.
