A Justice Department document obtained by The New York Times appears to show that former Republican U.S. Representative Matt Gaetz paid thousands of dollars via Venmo to women, friends and associates.
Federal investigators created the document while investigating whether Gaetz—recently nominated for attorney general by President-elect Donald Trump—sex-trafficked a minor, violated the Mann Act, which bars transporting “any woman or girl for the purpose of prostitution or debauchery, or for any other immoral purpose” across state lines, and obstructed justice.
The department investigated Gaetz for three years before ultimately closing the inquiry last year after prosecutors recommended not charging the former congressman from Florida.
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Newsweek reached out to Gaetz for comment on Wednesday.
According to the Times, the Justice Department document appears to show that Gaetz made thousands of dollars in payments to two women whose lawyer recently revealed they testified to the House Ethics Committee, telling the panel they had sex with Gaetz in exchange for money.
Gaetz has strongly denied the allegations, and Steven Cheung, spokesperson for Trump’s 2024 campaign, told the Times that “this purposeful leaking of classified investigative materials is the sort of politicized D.O.J. weaponization that Matt Gaetz will end.”
“The Justice Department investigated Gaetz for years, failed to find a crime and are now leaking material with false information to smear the next attorney general,” Cheung added in his statement.
The Times noted, however, that there are no classified markings on the document.
The House Ethics Committee started investigating Gaetz after the Justice Department decided to close its inquiry, and the panel spent Wednesday deliberating behind closed doors over whether to release the report of its probe.
But committee chairman, U.S. Representative Michael Guest, told reporters that “there was not an agreement by the committee to release the report.”
Gaetz, who resigned from his seat in Congress shortly after Trump chose him for attorney general, also spent Wednesday on Capitol Hill, where he met with Republican senators about his nomination.
The former congressman showed up to his meetings with Vice President-elect JD Vance, who has been working to shepherd Gaetz’s nomination through the Senate.
According to Politico, several Republican lawmakers emerged from their meetings with Gaetz pushing for him to receive a confirmation hearing.
U.S. Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri told the outlet that he and the former congressman “talked about the need to get a confirmation hearing” to allow Gaetz to “respond in public under oath” to the allegations leveled against him.
Mike Lee, U.S. senator of Utah, told reporters that Gaetz “did spend a number of minutes talking about the unfairness and the lack of truth of the allegations being pursued by the committee, and the fact that” the Justice Department “did decline to prosecute.”
But the Utah lawmaker added that it would be “troubling” if the allegations against Gaetz are true.
Trump offered a one-word response when asked Tuesday whether he was reconsidering Gaetz’s nomination: “No.” The president-elect is also said to be pushing Republicans hard to confirm Gaetz to lead the Justice Department, according to NBC News.
A transition official told the outlet that Trump has been “heavily working the phones” behind the scenes to court Republican votes for Gaetz. The New York Times reported, however, that Trump is privately aware of Gaetz’s less than ideal odds of gaining Senate confirmation. But Trump is pushing for him anyway, with the knowledge that the upper chamber won’t reject all of his nominees, the report said.
Update 11/20/24, 8:16 p.m.: This article has been updated with additional information and context.
