The House Ethics Committee has spoken with six women in connection with its investigation of Rep. Matt Gaetz over allegations of sexual misconduct and illegal drug use, with one of them reportedly claiming that the far-right congressman paid her for sexual favours.
A female witness who was also part of a closed Justice Department investigation into the Florida Republican testified that she was paid to attend parties with Gaetz and his friend, former Seminole County Tax Commissioner Joel Greenberg, where sex acts and drug use occurred. According to an ABC News source:.
According to the report, House Ethics investigators showed several women records of Venmo payments from Gaetz, but only one said the transactions were for sex.
Others claimed the money was received in exchange for attending parties.
A spokesman for the Ethics Commission declined to comment.
Gaetz had previously said the investigation was “attempting to reclassify my generosity to a former partner as less appropriate,” but on Monday he accused the ethics committee of “opening a new, pointless investigation.”
A spokesman for Gaetz referred The Washington Post to that statement in response to a request for comment Wednesday.
“They are doing this to avoid the obvious fact that any investigation against me will have the same outcome – my exoneration,” he said. Post to X.
“This is the Soviet Union. [Former House Speaker] Kevin McCarthy introduced them to the man and they are currently trying to find the culprit.”
Rep. McCarthy (R-Calif.) claims he led a successful effort to oust Gaetz last October after he refused to intervene in a House ethics investigation.
Gaetz has accused McCarthy of lying and said publicly at the time that he was concerned about a “secret deal” he had made with President Biden about more U.S. military assistance to Ukraine.
In May 2021, Greenberg pleaded guilty to recruiting women, at least one of whom was a minor, and paying them more than $70,000 for commercial sex acts between 2016 and 2018.
He was sentenced in December 2022 to 11 years in federal prison for wire fraud, stalking, identity theft, creating a false identification document, conspiracy to defraud the U.S. government and sex trafficking of a minor.
Federal prosecutors chose not to indict Gaetz, 42, following a three-year investigation into allegations that he paid a 17-year-old girl to travel across state lines for sex.
The House Ethics Committee released a statement Tuesday confirming that it had reopened an investigation into the conduct of the Florida congressman that had been suspended at the request of the Department of Justice.
The committee first revealed the existence of the investigation in April 2021.
“There has been an unusual amount of public reporting about the committee’s activities during this Congress,” the committee said Tuesday. “Much of that reporting has been inaccurate.”
The 10-person committee has questioned more than a dozen witnesses, issued 25 subpoenas, including to the Justice Department, and reviewed thousands of pages of documents as part of its investigation.
ABC News sources said the Justice Department declined to coordinate with the House committee, but Venmo did turn over records in response to a subpoena.
Greenberg is also reportedly cooperating with the committee, according to the media outlet.
