Washington wants full story on Matt Gaetz and 17-year-old minor

Claims that Matt Gaetz had sex with a 17-year-old minor at parties where illegal drugs were present are derailing his chances of confirmation as Attorney-General.

Donald Trump has reportedly admitted his nominee for attorney-general, Matt Gaetz, is unlikely to have his nomination confirmed, as Florida lawyer Joel Leppard ramps up public claims that one of his clients witnessed Mr Gaetz having sex with a minor in July 2017, with Venmo and PayPal receipts supporting the allegation.

However Mr Trump is still calling senators on Mr Gaetz’s behalf, the New York Times reports, with no sign that he will withdraw the nomination.

However the revelations over MR Gaetz’s behaviour in 2017 are certain to ramp-up concerns over the suitability of the controversial cabinet pick, with Republicans now privately telling US media outlets they do not believe there is a way for Mr Gaetz to be confirmed as attorney-general.

Mr Leppard gave multiple media interviews on Monday (Tuesday AEDT) in which he said that two of his adult clients – both of whom gave evidence to the House Ethics Committee – claim they were paid by Mr Gaetz for sex and attended parties with him from 2017 to January 2019 where illegal drugs were present.

“She arrived at the party. She had sex with Representative Gaetz within minutes of her arrival. Later on, when she was walking out to the pool area, she observed to her right Representative Gaetz having sex with her friend who was 17 at the time,” Mr Leppard told CBS news.

Matt Gaetz and Tulsi Gabbard step off a plane at Philadelphia International Airport during the presidential race.

Mr Leppard said that his client was “absolutely certain that she observed, had seen her friend and Representative Gaetz having sex against what she described as a game table of some sort.”

He also said the House Ethics Committee was informed that Mr Gaetz had used coded language to ensure the presence of illegal drugs at the parties he attended.

Speaking to ABC news, Mr Leppard said that his clients had gone through specific Venmo payments with the House Ethics Committee. “My clients repeatedly testified, what was this payment for? That was for sex,” he said.

Yet Mr Leppard clarified that his client believed that Mr Gaetz “did not know” that her friend was a minor, and that “when he learned that she was a minor, that he broke off things and did not continue a sexual relationship until she turned 18.”

The allegations are a major distraction for the Trump team, with the President-elect still unveiling his key cabinet selections.

So far, the nominations of Fox News TV host Pete Hegseth as defence secretary, former Democrat Tulsi Gabbard as national intelligence director and former independent presidential candidate Robert Kennedy Jr as the nation’s top health official have attracted the most pushback.

The House Ethics Committee was due to meet next on Wednesday (Thursday AEDT), although there was speculation this could be postponed. However, it was expected to discuss whether to publicly release its report into allegations Mr Gaetz was involved in sexual misconduct, bribery and illicit drug use.

Mr Gaetz has denied any wrongdoing.

While the committee’s report was widely expected to have been released last week, Mr Gaetz’s nomination as attorney-general allowed him to resign from Congress – a move that scuttled plans for any immediate public release of the investigation’s findings.

There is now a heated political debate in Washington over whether the committee should publicly release its investigation anyway, with some members of congress on both sides of the aisle arguing for greater transparency ahead of Senate confirmation hearings.

Mr Leppard has called for the report to be released. But House Speaker Mike Johnson – who has denied discussing the issue with Mr Trump – says that former members of congress should remain beyond the jurisdiction of the House Ethics Committee.

“There’s a very important protocol and tradition and rule that we maintain that the House Ethics Committee’s jurisdiction does not extend to non-members of Congress,” Mr Johnson told CNN at the weekend. “I think that would be a Pandora’s box.”

Republican House Ethics Committee Chair Michael Guest told Politico on Monday (Tuesday AEDT) that the report had been made available for review by every member of the bipartisan panel. He also said that Mr Johnson’s desire to keep the report private would not have an “impact on what we as a committee ultimately decide.”

In recent days, Republican Senator for North Dakota Kevin Cramer made the case for the committee’s report to be made available to senators as a necessary first step, and noted Mr Gaetz’s “abrupt departure from Congress just prior to that report coming out.”

“At the very least, those of us that will have a vote at some point, starting with the Judiciary Committee, should see that. And I can’t imagine they won’t.”

In addition to the congressional probe, a separate investigation into Mr Gaetz was conducted by the Department of Justice – the same department he has now been chosen to lead. It commenced in late 2020 but the investigation was closed in February 2023 without any charges being filed.

The DoJ investigation took on heightened importance following the emergence of Mr Gaetz’s ties to Joel Greenberg – a former Florida county tax collector – who in 2020 was arrested and went on to plead guilty to six federal charges after a reaching a deal with prosecutors.

These included the sex trafficking of a child – in which Greenberg introduced a 17-year-old minor to other adult men for sex – as well as identity theft, wire fraud, stalking and conspiracy. He is currently serving an 11-year prison sentence.

John Clune, the lawyer representing the former minor at the heart of the saga, has publicly stated that Mr Gaetz’s nomination was “a perverse development in a truly dark series of events” and called for the House Ethics Committee to immediately release its report.

Once the DoJ investigation into Mr Gaetz was closed in early 2023, the House Ethics Committee resumed work on its own probe which had commenced back in April 2021.

A spokesman for Mr Gaetz told Politico on Monday (Tuesday AEDT) that the former congressman had been cleared by the current Attorney-General, Merrick Garland, while a Trump transition spokesman said that “Matt Gaetz will be the next Attorney General.”

“He’s the right man for the job and will end the weaponisation of our justice system.”