A Florida lawyer who represented two women in the House Ethics Committee investigation into former Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz said the women alleged Gaetz paid them for sex, according to multiple media reports.
One of the women also said she saw Gaetz having sex with a 17-year-old, according to reports from the Washington Post and ABC News, both of which spoke with Florida attorney Joel Leppard, who represented the two women. Leppard did not immediately respond to a request for comment from USA TODAY.
Gaetz is President-elect Donald Trump‘s pick for attorney general. Since Trump made his preference known, House Speaker Mike Johnson has said the committee’s report on Gaetz should not come out, even as some Republican senators have said they want to see it. The Senate is responsible for confirming nominees for top posts in Trump’s upcoming administration.
The Justice Department investigated Gaetz as part of a sex-trafficking inquiry, but declined to bring charges. Gaetz has previously denied wrongdoing related to that probe. He resigned from Congress Wednesday, just two days before the House report was scheduled for release.
A spokesperson for Gaetz’s House office, Jacob Bliss, directed USA TODAY to a statement from Trump transition spokesperson Alex Pfeiffer, who described the allegations as a “baseless” attempt to derail Trump’s upcoming administration.
Sign-up for Your Vote: Text with the USA TODAY elections team.
“The Biden Justice Department investigated Gaetz for years and cleared him of wrongdoing,” Pfeiffer said. “Matt Gaetz will be the next Attorney General. He’s the right man for the job and will end the weaponization of our justice system.”
Leppard, the lawyer for the two women, told ABC News that the client who testified to seeing Gaetz have sex with a minor also said Gaetz stopped when he learned the girl was underage.
“Her understanding was that Matt Gaetz did not know that she was a minor, and that when he learned that she was a minor, that he broke off things and did not continue a sexual relationship until she turned 18,” Leppard told ABC News.
