Gaetz nomination brings new focus on underage sex allegations

Matt Gaetz’s nomination as attorney general has reopened a central question that has been probed by the Justice Department he now hopes to lead, and by the Congress from which he just resigned: Did he engage in sexual misconduct with a 17-year-old girl and violate sex-trafficking laws?

After the Justice Department dropped its investigation into those explosive allegations in 2023, the House Ethics Committee restarted its probe into Gaetz, and it was slated to release its report Friday. Gaetz’s resignation from the House on Wednesday means the committee no longer has jurisdiction over him, but the panel is under increasing pressure to release its findings - including from an attorney representing the woman who has been at the center of the claims.

[Matt Gaetz once faced a sex trafficking investigation by the Justice Department he could now lead]

The woman has never been publicly identified, but her lawyer, John Clune, said in a post on X that Gaetz’s nomination “is a perverse development in a truly dark series of events. We would support the House Ethics Committee immediately releasing their report. She was a high school student and there were witnesses.” Clune did not respond to a request for comment.

Gaetz said in a statement forwarded by the Trump transition team that “these allegations are invented” and that “this false smear following a three-year criminal investigation should be viewed with great skepticism.”

As Republicans in Congress and career officials in the Justice Department alike grapple with Gaetz’s stunning ascension to potentially become America’s top law enforcement official, the sordid details of the allegations he faced - and the lingering questions about why the Justice Department did not end up filing charges - have unexpectedly taken center stage in President-elect Donald Trump’s lightning speed rollout of Cabinet officials.

The possibility that Gaetz could soon lead a department that once considered prosecuting him shocked members of both political parties and, if he is confirmed by a Senate vote or in a recess appointment, could lead to an exodus of career Justice officials. The Trump team had vetted many potential attorneys general that conservative lawyers interested in working at the Justice Department viewed as credible and were excited about. Gaetz wasn’t among those names being circulated, according to people familiar with the transition efforts who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retaliation.

One lawyer who had worked in the Justice Department during Trump’s first term said the Gaetz nomination has given some prospective appointees and others pause. They are waiting to see how the Gaetz and other nomination processes play out before they decide if they want to join.

“There will be mass resignations of career prosecutors at DOJ & US Attorney Offices & no one left to prosecute gun crimes, child porn, corruption, sex trafficking, or hate crimes,” Miriam “Mimi” Rocah, the Democratic district attorney in Westchester County, New York, who has investigated the Trump family business over its tax practices, posted on X.

On Thursday, Trump said he would name two of his own criminal defense lawyers to top Justice Department positions as well. Todd Blanche, who has led Trump’s defense in three of his four trials, was selected for deputy attorney general - the second most powerful position in the Justice Department. Emil Bove was picked as principal associate deputy attorney general.

The Justice Department investigation into Gaetz focused in part on whether he had engaged in sexual misconduct with a 17-year-old girl when he was an adult. The matter came up as Justice officials examined the actions of Gaetz’s friend Joel Greenberg, a tax collector in Seminole County, Florida. Greenberg pleaded guilty in 2021 to sex trafficking with a minor and other crimes and agreed to cooperate in the Gaetz probe. He was sentenced to 11 years in prison.

In his plea deal, Greenberg said he paid for sex acts with a minor and “also introduced the minor to other adult men, who engaged in commercial sex acts with the minor” in Florida. Green had a website for “sugar daddies” to find women who were paid to have sex “with him and others,” the plea deal said. Prosecutors identified more than 150 financial transactions on the payment app Venmo totaling more than $70,000, for transactions between $200 to $1,000, and found that Greenberg falsely represented that they were for school or other expenses.

The plea deal doesn’t mention Gaetz, but it led to a spate of reports that Greenberg may have been implicating him.

Greenberg’s attorney, Fritz Scheller, said at the time, “I’m sure Matt Gaetz is not feeling very comfortable today.” He added that his client was “uniquely situated” to help prosecutors. Scheller could not be reached for comment Thursday.

The Washington Post reported in 2021 that Gaetz had boasted to people about women he met through Greenberg. In a text message response to that story, Gaetz told The Post: “I have never paid for sex. I have never had sex with an underage person as an adult. I have dated women in college and graduate school, and have boasted about how great they are across the board, as boyfriends do. At times women I have dated have joined me at campaign events.”

While Greenberg and the unnamed woman both were considered as witnesses in a possible case against Gaetz, prosecutors recommended that the case be dropped, and the Justice Department closed the investigation in 2023. The agency did not give a reason, but The Post reported that people familiar with the decision, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal conversations, said there were concerns about whether a jury would be convinced of the credibility of witnesses.

The House Ethics Committee, meanwhile, announced in 2021 that it had launched an investigation, saying in an unusually specific statement that it was examining whether Gaetz “may have engaged in sexual misconduct and/or illicit drug use, shared inappropriate images or videos on the House floor, misused state identification records, converted campaign funds to personal use, and/or accepted a bribe, improper gratuity, or impermissible gift, in violation of House Rules, laws, or other standards of conduct.”

The House probe was paused until the Justice Department dropped its investigation and restarted in 2023. It said in June that it was continuing its examination and was set to release its report on Friday - an event that Gaetz may have hoped to preempt by resigning on Wednesday.

Members of both political parties this week called for the report’s release or at least to preserve it for possible use during Gaetz’s nomination hearing. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), a Judiciary Committee member, said that he “absolutely” wants to review the report as part of the confirmation process.

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Illinois), chairman of the Judiciary Committee, called on the House Ethics Committee, which is made up of an equal number of Democrats and Republicans, to preserve all documents related to the investigation.

Republicans are on track to hold a 53-seat majority in the Senate, so they can’t afford to lose four GOP votes if no Democrats support Gaetz. Trump could also seek to install Gaetz in a recess appointment, which would occur when the Senate is not in session and forgo a confirmation battle.

[Trump dares Senate Republicans to defy him on nominees with limited experience]

At the same time, Republicans loyal to Trump have said that the Senate must confirm any of the president-elect’s choices and threatened to try to oust any GOP senator who votes against Gaetz. Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk posted Wednesday night that Republicans who voted to confirm Merrick Garland as Biden’s attorney general in 2021 but don’t support Matt Gaetz as Donald Trump’s attorney general “will face an immediate primary challenge.”

In 2018, Trump fired Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who had recused himself from matters related to an investigation into whether Russia tried to influence the presidential campaign. Sessions’s recusal set in motion a chain of events that led to the appointment of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, angering Trump.

The Justice Department has traditionally operated independently from the White House, under political norms established after the Watergate scandal to guard against political influence in criminal investigations.

For decades, many conservative lawyers have believed that those reforms went too far and the Justice Department should operate more like it is part of the executive branch. Trump and his allies made clear during the 2024 campaign that in a second term, he would exercise much more control over prosecutions.

But some conservative lawyers believe Gaetz may go too far. Gregg Nunziata, executive director of the Society for the Rule of Law, a conservative group critical of Trump’s authoritarian rhetoric, said an attorney general has two roles: as the president’s lieutenant on legal policies and as the more independent chief law enforcement officer.

“I think many people see this nomination and see how he could be a good fit for the first role, but struggle to see how he would be suitable for the second role,” Nunziata said. “You need an attorney general who can perform both those functions and who understands where one ends and the other begins.”

Alberto R. Gonzales, the former attorney general under President George W. Bush, expressed deep concerns about the incoming administration and warned of the “dangerous” implications if the Justice Department loses its independence from the White House.

“It’s very important that the Department of Justice have the liberty, the flexibility to make law enforcement decisions without political influence by the White House,” Gonzales said during a gathering Wednesday night of the Society for the Rule of Law in D.C.

“Part of my concern is the fact that there may be a desire by the incoming administration to sort of limit the authority of the Department of Justice to make decisions that it has made historically with respect to investigations and prosecutions,” he told the room filled with Republican lawyers at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Georgetown.

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Aaron Schaffer, Hannah Dormido, Patrick Svitek, Justine McDaniel and Liz Goodwin contributed to this report.