House Ethics Committee investigates allegations of sexual misconduct and obstruction of justice against Matt Gaetz

Washington — The House Ethics Committee announced the status of its investigation in an unusual statement on Tuesday GOP Representative Matt Gaetz from Florida on allegations ranging from sexual misconduct to drug abuse to obstruction of justice.

The statement said there had been “significant and unusual amounts of public reporting on the committee’s activities this Congress” and said “many of these reports were inaccurate.” The panel disclosed which allegations against Gaetz it was continuing to investigate and which it was not.

According to the press release, the committee is still investigating whether Gaetz may have been guilty of “sexual assault and illegal drug use, accepted inappropriate gifts, granted special privileges and favors to individuals with whom he had a personal relationship, and attempted to obstruct government investigations into his conduct.”

The committee said it had spoken to more than a dozen witnesses and reviewed thousands of pages of documents and concluded that some of the allegations merited further review and had “identified additional allegations.” The statement acknowledged that it was “difficult to obtain relevant information from Representative Gaetz and others.”

The panel is taking no further action on allegations that Gaetz “may have shared inappropriate images or videos in the House of Representatives, misused government identification documents, used campaign funds for personal purposes, and/or accepted bribes or inappropriate gratuities.”

CBS News reported in January that the committee’s investigators appeared to be taking a closer look at a closed federal investigation into Gaetz. The Justice Department last year refused to charge a fee Gaetz in his investigation into sex trafficking. The four-term congressman was examined for several years to determine whether he violated sex trafficking laws and obstructed justice in that investigation. Gaetz has said he never paid for sex or had sex with an underage girl. The Ethics Committee suspended its investigation while the Justice Department’s investigation progressed.

The committee stressed that the existence of an investigation does not mean that violations of federal law occurred. Gaetz denied all allegations.

On Monday, before the committee released its statement, Gaetz accused the panel of “now launching new frivolous investigations” and blamed former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy for the move. Gaetz The attack led to the expulsion McCarthy last year.

“The House Ethics Committee has dropped four investigations into me based on lies designed solely to defame me,” he wrote on X. “Instead of working with me to ban stock trading in Congress, the Ethics Committee is now opening new, frivolous investigations. They are doing this to evade the obvious fact that every investigation into me ends the same way: with my vindication. That’s Soviet. Kevin McCarthy showed them the man, and now they are trying to expose the crime. I work for Northwest Floridians who will not be swayed by this nonsense, and McCarthy and his henchmen know it.”

Scott MacFarlane contributed reporting.