The unusual friendship between Katie Hill and Matt Gaetz appears to have ended with a report that he showed nude photos to other lawmakers and a federal investigation into whether he had sex with a 17-year-old.
“If there is even a fraction of truth to these reports, he should resign immediately,” Hill wrote in a Monday Vanity Fair article.
The former California Democratic congresswoman and the firebrand Florida Republican formed an unlikely friendship when she was still in Congress through their work on the House Armed Services Committee and running into each other between television appearances.
Gaetz came to her defense when news broke of Hill’s “throuple” and her having a relationship with a former female campaign staff member and when nude photos of her leaked to the public. The scandal and media attention eventually led to her resigning from Congress in 2019.
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“Who among us would look perfect if every ex leaked every photo/text? Katie isn’t being investigated by Ethics or maligned because she hurt anyone – it is because she is different,” Gaetz said in a tweet.
Last summer, when Gaetz revealed that he had an adopted Cuban son named Nestor and faced mockery, Hill returned the gesture. “He talks about Nestor more than anything, has done so much for his son & is truly a proud dad. This #freenestor thing is bulls—,” she said in a tweet.
Hill wrote in the Monday column that when she first heard about a federal investigation into whether Gaetz had sex with a 17-year-old, she “hoped that the investigation would ultimately clear him.”
“But then, CNN reported that Matt had shown at least two lawmakers photos and videos of naked women,” Hill said. “The women on his phone likely had no idea that the nude photos and videos they’d either privately shared or that he’d taken (with or without their consent) were being passed around and ogled by Republican congressmen. If true, Matt had engaged in the very practice he’d defended me from.”
Gaetz has repeatedly denied that he participated in any illegal activity, including sexually abusing a minor.
Hill added, “for the record,” that she has not slept with Gaetz. Her mom had warned her long ago not to do so, she said.
She also alleged that Gaetz once told her, when talking about then-President Donald Trump: “I don’t think I want to be in Congress after he’s done as president.”
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The former congresswoman first addressed the allegations against Gaetz without naming him in a tweet last week.
“A 17 year old girl is a girl, not a woman. Statutory rape is rape, not anything else, ” Hill said.
A 17 year old girl is a girl, not a woman.
Statutory rape is rape, not anything else.
— Katie Hill (@KatieHill4CA) March 31, 2021
