Woman told House Ethics Committee she saw Gaetz having sex with a minor

A woman who attended a 2017 party with former Rep. Matt Gaetz told the House Ethics Committee she witnessed the then-recently elected congressman having sex with a minor, according to her attorney.

The woman’s attorney, Joel Leppard, released a statement on Friday, calling on the committee to release the findings of its yearslong review of Gaetz. The committee planned to vote Friday on whether to release their report, but the meeting was canceled after President-elect Donald Trump announced he intended to nominate Gaetz as attorney general and the Florida Republican resigned from Congress.

“As the Senate considers former Rep. Gaetz’s nomination for Attorney General, several questions demand answers,” Leppard said in a statement. “What if sworn testimony detailed conduct that would disqualify anyone from serving as our nation’s chief law enforcement officer?”

Leppard’s client is one of at least four women who have told the committee they were paid to attend parties with drugs and sex where Gaetz was present, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter. Her account corroborates the testimony of the then-minor, who told the committee that she had sex with Gaetz when she was 17 years old.

“She was a high school student, and there were witnesses,” her attorney, John Clune, said in a statement on Thursday. He also urged the committee to release its report on Gaetz.

CBS News has learned the committee also has Gaetz’s Venmo transactions that allegedly show payments for the women. 

Gaetz, who has denied all wrongdoing, including having sex with a minor, has called the committee’s investigation a “smear campaign.”

The Department of Justice previously investigated Gaetz’s involvement with the minor as part of a sex trafficking probe, but no charges were brought against him.

House Speaker Mike Johnson said Friday that he would “strongly request” that the House Ethics Committee withhold the report on its investigation into Gaetz. 

Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said he wants to see the report. GOP Sen. Mike Rounds of South Dakota isn’t on the Judiciary Committee but said in an interview on CNN, “We should be able to get a hold of [the report], and we should have access to it one way or another, based on the way we do all of these nominations.”

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• Matt Gaetz