The 10-person committee, which rarely releases information about ongoing investigations, provided the status of the investigation into Gaetz in a lengthy statement. The committee said it had “determined that certain allegations merit continued investigation” since it began its investigation in April 2021, writing that the committee had identified additional allegations “worthy of investigation” while at the same time dismissing other charges.
The committee detailed new avenues of investigation, including whether Gaetz “attempted to obstruct a government investigation into his conduct by providing special privileges or benefits to individuals with whom he has personal relationships.” [Gaetz] “He may have shared inappropriate images and videos on the House floor, misused state identification cards, misappropriated campaign funds, and accepted bribes and improper payments.”
The update came the morning after Gaetz took to X, the website formerly known as Twitter, to criticize the House Ethics Committee for “launching a new, ill-advised investigation” into his activities, blasting the committee as “Soviet” and acting at the behest of former Chairman Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), whom Gaetz helped oust from the chairmanship last year.
The committee said in a statement that Gaetz “categorically denied” the allegations before the committee, and noted that it had since had “difficulty obtaining relevant information” from the congressman. Still, investigators “spoke with over a dozen witnesses, issued 25 subpoenas, and reviewed thousands of pages of documents related to this matter,” the committee added.
The update outlines the timeline of the investigation into Gaetz. The review was opened by the Ethics Committee in April 2021 but delayed at the request of the Department of Justice. When federal prosecutors closed their long-running sex trafficking investigation into Gaetz in February 2023 without filing charges, the committee resumed the investigation in May 2023. The Department of Justice investigation, which began with the approval of then-Attorney General William P. Barr in the final months of the Trump administration, focused on whether Gaetz had a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old girl, paid for sex acts, and paid women to travel across state lines for sex acts. Gaetz repeatedly denied any wrongdoing at the time.
In September 2022, career prosecutors recommended not indicting Gaetz, citing credibility issues with two central witnesses, one of whom was Joel Greenberg, a former friend of Gaetz’s and tax collector for Seminole County, Florida, who pleaded guilty to sex trafficking of minors and other charges as part of a May 2021 cooperation agreement, The Washington Post reported at the time.
