WASHINGTON — The House Ethics Committee is looking deeper into allegations made against Congressman Matt Gaetz, which include taking bribes, obstructing justice and having sex with an underage girl. This comes amid revelations that Gaetz ousted former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy specifically to try to stop the Ethics Committee's investigation into him.
Sources have told CBS News that the Republican-led Ethics Committee is now interviewing witnesses, including the alleged victim, and asking for records from the Justice Department's investigation of Gaetz.
The Justice Department had been investigating Gaetz since at least 2021 amid allegations that he had an inappropriate sexual relationship with a 17-year-old girl and paid for her to travel with him, thus violating sex trafficking laws.
Gaetz's associate Joel Greenberg, who was alleged to have introduced the two, pleaded guilty to trafficking a minor and other federal crimes in 2022. Greenberg, who is now serving an 11-year prison sentence, claimed that Gaetz had paid him via Venmo to have sex with an underage girl in 2017.
When the Justice Department ultimately closed its investigation after deciding it would not bring formal federal charges against Gaetz, the House Ethics Committee immediately took up the probe in response to the same allegations.
The Committee is also investigating other allegations, including that Gaetz took bribes and illegal gifts in exchange for his advocacy and influence, regularly did hard drugs and solicited prostitutes, used campaign money for his own personal luxuries and flaunted naked photos of his alleged sexual partners on the House floor.
A personal vendetta privately confessed
This comes amid reports that the House Committee's probe was the real reason Gaetz led the efforts to oppose Kevin McCarthy's House Speakership and later to remove him from it in 2023.
According to private communications reviewed by The Daily Beast, Gaetz believed McCarthy had total control over the Ethics Committee and was single-handedly the one responsible for setting it up. And although Gaetz publicly declared his campaign to have McCarthy removed was due to the deal the former speaker made with House Democrats on a spending deal, he privately told a group of colleagues that the push was directly because of the House probe.
Amid the internal fighting and anger among the House GOP following McCarthy's ouster, other Republicans began to call Gaetz out for claiming that his battle with McCarthy had anything to do with the spending bill.
"To say he came here as a fiscal crusader, it's more likely he came here for the teenage interns on Capitol Hill, to be honest," said Marc Short, former chief of staff to Mike Pence in an interview on CNN at the time.
"We had all seen the videos he was showing on the House floor of the girls that he had slept with. He'd brag about how he would crush ED medicine and chase it with an energy drink so he could go all night," said Senator Markwayne Mullin, R-OK, in a separate CNN interview.
Gaetz has denied all allegations of wrongdoing and responded to the Daily Beast's findings by suggesting that they start laying off their journalists.
"As I’ve answered likely 100 times on the record, I led the charge to remove Kevin McCarthy from his role as House Speaker because he failed to keep his promises,” Gaetz said in a statement to the Beast.
