WASHINGTON: A former US lawmaker who was Donald Trump’s first pick to run the Justice Department paid for sex numerous times, including with an underage girl, according to a congressional report released on Monday.

Matt Gaetz also regularly used cocaine and ecstasy, and bought marijuana from his Capitol Hill office, according to the 37-page document, the culmination of a long-running probe by the House Ethics Committee.

The former lawmaker consumed cocaine and bought marijuana from his Capitol Hill office

“The committee determined there is substantial evidence that Representative Gaetz violated House rules and other standards of conduct prohibiting prostitution, statutory rape, illicit drug use, impermissible gifts, special favors or privileges, and obstruction of Congress,” panel investigators wrote, according to reports.

Gaetz has repeatedly denied wrongdoing — pointing to the Justice Department’s decision not to bring charges against him in 2023 after a criminal probe — and the report came out despite him suing the committee to block its release.

Congressional investigators found that the 42-year-old broke multiple Florida laws on sexual misconduct, although they cleared him of federal sex trafficking violations.

The report listed payments by Gaetz totaling more than $90,000 to 12 women “likely in connection with sexual activity and/or drug use” between 2017 and 2020. They focused on a 2018 trip to the Bahamas during which Gaetz is alleged to have had sex with four women and took the ecstasy.

The ex-congressman is an incendiary figure with few friends on Capitol Hill, but was a staunch Trump loyalist and a favorite of the president-elect’s ardent supporters.

Published in Dawn, December 24th, 2024