Ethics Report Says Gaetz Paid Women, Used Drugs and Sought Passport Help

Ethics report lays out a broad set of allegations against Gaetz

The House Ethics Committee has released a long-awaited report that says former Florida representative Matt Gaetz paid women for sexual activity, used illegal drugs, accepted gifts beyond House limits and helped a woman secure passport assistance while serving in Congress.

The report, published after Gaetz resigned and withdrew from consideration for attorney general, describes conduct spanning at least 2017 to 2020. It says investigators concluded he regularly paid women for engaging in sexual activity, had sex with a 17-year-old girl, and bought or reimbursed people for drugs. The committee also said he used his position to intervene in a passport case for a woman he was sleeping with.

Gaetz has denied the findings and has said the committee carried out an unfair investigation. But the report itself presents a detailed account of payments, travel, messaging and account activity that investigators say supported their conclusions. One example cited by the committee involves a cheque marked "tuition reimbursement" that was made out to cash and given to a college student after a group encounter. In another instance, investigators said Gaetz used a fake-name email address and someone else’s PayPal account to hide payments.

The report says the financial transfers were complex and often difficult to trace. It also says Gaetz relied on Joel Greenberg, his associate who is now in prison for sex-trafficking-related crimes, as a frequent intermediary. The committee wrote that it could not always determine whether a specific payment was for sex, but it said the broader pattern showed repeated payments connected to sexual activity.

The report gives particular attention to drugs and the role they played around the alleged encounters. It says Gaetz asked women to bring marijuana cartridges to meetings, used fake accounts to buy marijuana and appears to have had a heavy marijuana habit. The committee also referred to alleged cocaine and ecstasy use. According to the report, drugs and alcohol left some women unable to fully recall events or know what was happening.

One section covers an encounter with a woman who told investigators she was 17 when she had sex with Gaetz at a party in 2017, at least once in front of other people, while under the influence of ecstasy. The committee said it found no evidence that Gaetz knew she was underage, and it noted that federal prosecutors ultimately declined to bring charges. But it also said the encounter fit a wider pattern of conduct that raised serious concerns.

The report additionally says Gaetz asked his chief of staff to speed up a passport application for a woman with whom he was involved, and that he gave her $1,000. The committee says that breached House rules forbidding the use of office for special favours.

Gaetz resigned in November 2024, days before the report was due to be made public, and withdrew from the attorney general nomination a week later. The release ensures the allegations now enter the public record in full, even as Gaetz continues to reject them.