A collection of incriminating messages was revealed during the House Ethics investigation concerning Matt Gaetz, with the details becoming public on Monday.
Gaetz faces allegations of compensating women, including a 17-year-old high school student, for sexual activities. He purportedly sent messages discussing his inappropriate liaisons and even chastised one woman for only meeting him briefly for a “drive-by” encounter before abandoning him due to fatigue.
Investigators looked into messages in which Gaetz reportedly asked women to bring along drugs—specifically marijuana “cartridges” and “rolls”—to their rendezvous, suggesting he would compensate them for those as well as for sexual relations.
Additional communications, involving a woman and Gaetz’s associate Joel Greenberg, who has been convicted for sex trafficking, exposed how the two allegedly connected with and met women they financially supported for sex. In one exchange, featuring a picture of a cheerful Gaetz, Greenberg reportedly texted a woman about a $400 “meet-up” involving himself, Gaetz, the woman he messaged, and her companion. He supposedly encountered this woman on SeekingArrangement.com.
“$400 is not an issue,” Greenberg wrote. “Are both of you old enough to drink?”
After a few messages, the photo of Gaetz, at 42 years old, was shared—likely to gauge if he was considered attractive.
“Oooh, my friend thinks he’s really cute!” the anonymous 20-year-old woman replied.
Greenberg allegedly responded: “Well, he’s only here for the day; we work hard and party hard… Have you tried molly?”
The woman involved in those conversations reportedly later met Gaetz, according to the investigation. It was indicated that he became a frequent client, compensating her with $2,000 over several years. At the time the report was released, he was still following her on social media.
In another dialogue reviewed by lawmakers, they alleged that Gaetz invited a woman on a private flight to Key West on May 19, 2017. He mentioned that she would be part of an “adventurous group” made up of two males and four females.
On that same day, Gaetz and the woman posed for a photo in Orlando, showing Gaetz in “a casual shirt with his arm around her in a dimly lit bar.” It was also reported that she was photographed with Gaetz in front of a helicopter, for which he supposedly paid her $600 to attend.
Other alleged messages indicated that Gaetz’s sexual activities extended beyond Florida—although the report emphasizes that a majority of his encounters happened with students in the Orlando region. He is also accused of financing two women’s flights to New York for a meeting with him and allegedly requested they bring “party favors” along. The committee noted these women were also compensated for engaging in sex with him.
However, Gaetz was not always eager to pay, as per the report. Texts exchanged between women who met with Gaetz and his then-girlfriend suggested that, at least once, he expected to receive sexual favors without payment. In other messages, a woman expressed, “Matt never paid me.”
“The guys [Gaetz and Greenberg] wanted me to mention that they are a bit tight on cash this weekend,” a text from Gaetz’s girlfriend reportedly stated. “Matt was like, if it could be more of a customer appreciation week…”
Subsequent texts referenced in the report suggested that the women acquiesced to Gaetz’s proposal for a complimentary meet-up.
“By the way, Matt also mentioned he is going to be a bit generous because of the ‘customer appreciation’ from last time,” a message from months later read, according to the document.
Another text indicated that Gaetz once wrote a check for $1,500 to cover a student’s online class.
After the woman explained her reason for needing the money, Gaetz reportedly asked, “How much is it?” and “When is it due?” before promptly responding, “On it.”
“You are the best human to ever walk the earth,” the woman replied.
The House Ethics Committee stated it found “substantial evidence” of statutory rape, prostitution, and illegal substance use by Gaetz from 2017 to 2020.
The complete report was disclosed for the first time on Monday afternoon, despite significant objections from Gaetz and other Republicans to remain undisclosed since he was no longer an officeholder.
Gaetz has refuted many allegations made by the committee, including the assertion that he paid for sex with a minor. Previously, the Department of Justice looked into this allegation and closed the investigation after a lengthy review.
House investigators, however, reached a different conclusion in their inquiry.
“The evidence strongly suggests that Representative Gaetz had sexual relations with multiple women” at a 2017 house gathering in Florida, the report stated, “and they were financially compensated.” That was Gaetz’s initial year in Congress.
Among those he allegedly paid for sex was a 17-year-old girl who had just completed her junior year of high school. She testified that Gaetz handed her $400 in cash after their encounter.
The teenager disclosed to investigators that she did not inform Gaetz of her minor status and that he never inquired about her age.
In a written response to the committee, Gaetz rejected claims of having sexual relations with a minor and also denied using any illegal drugs—despite investigators uncovering “substantial evidence” to the contrary, including fictitious email accounts created from his Capitol Hill office “to purchase marijuana.”
For a brief period, the release of the House Ethics report was uncertain after Gaetz departed from Congress last month to serve briefly as Donald Trump’s attorney general appointee, a position he held only momentarily after GOP Senators indicated they would not support his confirmation.
With Gaetz no longer in a position of authority, he asserted that the Ethics Committee had lost its jurisdiction and that the report should be kept confidential.
However, information from the report’s findings began surfacing, and pressure mounted on the bipartisan committee to make it public. In spite of some GOP representatives’ objections, the committee held a secret vote earlier this month in favor of releasing Gaetz’s scandalous details.
Gaetz attempted to get ahead of the report with a statement last week.
“My thirties were a time of working very hard—and having fun too,” he stated. “It’s embarrassing, though not illegal, that I probably partied, chased women, drank, and smoked more than I should have in my earlier years. I lead a different life now.”
Although the report contains grave allegations, many of them had previously been directed at Gaetz. The document first leaked to CBS News on Monday morning and was made public a few hours later. You can read the comprehensive report here.
Gaetz did not reply to a request for comment from the Daily Beast, but he took to X to express his dissatisfaction with the content of the report and with its release. He was particularly vocal about the report not including complete testimonies from his alleged victims, which he argues would have demonstrated that he did not pay some women for sexual services.
