Matt Gaetz, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to run the Department of Justice, has previously been investigated in the alleged sex trafficking of a 17-year-old girl — though the federal probe ultimately did not yield criminal charges.
Gaetz — a Florida congressman who has been one of Trump’s most loyal foot soldiers on Capitol Hill — has long denied the allegations and was told Feb. 15, 2023, that the DOJ was ending its investigation without charging him.
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“We have just spoken with the DOJ and have been informed that they have concluded their investigation into Congressman Gaetz and allegations related to sex trafficking and obstruction of justice and they have determined not to bring any charges against him,” Gaetz’s attorneys said then.
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Before he resigned from Congress after becoming Trump’s AG nominee Wednesday, Gaetz remained under investigation by the bipartisan House Ethics Committee, which is looking into whether the Florida lawmaker engaged in sexual misconduct and illicit drug use.
As NBC News reported in 2021, federal investigators were looking into Gaetz’s travel to the Bahamas with women and specifically whether those women were paid to travel for sex, which could violate federal law, a law enforcement official and another person familiar with the matter said.
At the time of the reporting, a Gaetz spokesperson said: “Rep. Gaetz has never paid for sex, nor has he had sex with an underage girl. What began with blaring headlines about ‘sex trafficking’ has now turned into a general fishing exercise about vacations and consensual relationships with adults.”
Law enforcement sources have told NBC News that the investigation originated from an inquiry into Joel Micah Greenberg, a one-time friend of Gaetz and former tax commissioner in Seminole County, Florida. Greenberg pleaded guilty in May 2021 to several crimes, including the sex-trafficking of a 17-year-old girl.
Federal prosecutors in the summer of 2021 were also investigating whether Gaetz might have obstructed justice during a phone call with a witness in a potential sex crimes probe, a law enforcement source told NBC News.
The obstruction probe, which stemmed from an inquiry about whether Gaetz had an improper relationship with a minor, was first reported by Politico, which cited two sources familiar with the case.
A spokesperson for Gaetz, who has not been charged with any crime in that investigation and has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing, scoffed at the time of the news of the obstruction inquiry.
“Congressman Gaetz pursues justice, he doesn’t obstruct it,” the spokesperson said in a written statement.
“After two months, there is still not a single on-record accusation of misconduct, and now the ‘story’ is changing yet again.”
Also in the summer of 2021, the FBI investigated and the Justice Department secured the guilty plea of a man involved in a plot to shake down Gaetz’s father, Don Gaetz, for $25 million.
Stephen Alford, 62, of Fort Walton Beach, Florida, said that he could help the congressman secure a presidential pardon, authorities said.
Alford said that he could help free former FBI agent Robert Levinson from Iran for $25 million from Don Gaetz, and in exchange secure Rep. Gaetz’s pardon from the Biden administration after claiming he had access to President Joe Biden.
Matt Gaetz has previously said that allegations stemmed from the extortion plot.
Gaetz told the House Ethics Committee in September that he is finished cooperating with the panel, which he said asked him for a list of adult sexual partners over the last seven years.
In a letter to the committee and later to reporters, Gaetz blasted the investigation as “not the business of Congress.”
“They’re just nosy is what they are, and it’s none of their business,” Gaetz told NBC News at the end of September.
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