Nearly a week after news broke of federal investigators looking into whether Matt Gaetz had sex with a 17-year-old, the Florida congressman has not budged in his denials of any illegal activity.
But he has subtly acknowledged some sexually charged behavior.
“I am a representative in Congress, not a monk, and certainly not a criminal,” Gaetz wrote in an op-ed for the Washington Examiner.
REP. MATT GAETZ: THE SWAMP IS OUT TO DROWN ME WITH FALSE CHARGES, BUT I’M NOT GIVING UP
Background on allegations: The New York Times reported last Tuesday that the Justice Department was investigating whether Gaetz “had a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old and paid for her to travel with him.” Investigators started to look into Gaetz as part of a broader investigation into Joel Greenberg, a former tax collector in Seminole County, Florida, and a political ally of Gaetz who was indicted in 2020 on charges including sex trafficking of a minor and financially supporting people in exchange for sex.
A subsequent New York Times report said that the investigation is focusing on whether Gaetz and Greenberg used cash apps to pay at least one woman found on the internet for sex, including on the website Seeking Arrangement, and also paid for their hotel rooms and flights. That report noted that it is not illegal to provide adults with hotel stays and gifts, but Gaetz could face charges if prosecutors can prove the payments were for sex.
News of the investigation spurred additional reports of unseemly behavior from Gaetz that are not necessarily connected to the investigation. CNN reported that Gaetz showed nude photos of women whom he slept with to other lawmakers, including while on the House floor.
Denials: Gaetz has repeatedly denied having sex with a 17-year-old or paying for sex and did so again in the op-ed.
“First, I have never, ever paid for sex. And second, I, as an adult man, have not slept with a 17-year-old,” Gaetz said.
Gaetz said that as “a grown man,” he “paid for an adult girlfriend’s expenses.”
In a Fox News interview last week, Gaetz said: “Providing for flights and hotel rooms for people that you’re dating who are of legal age is not a crime.”
He pointed out that the reports are based on unnamed sources and that no named woman has made an accusation against him on the record.
Finger-pointing: Gaetz argued that the allegations against him are similar to other initial bombshell stories that later fizzled. He cited claims that Trump is a “Russian asset,” which special counsel Robert Mueller’s report into the 2016 election did not conclude, 2018 rape allegations against Justice Brett Kavanaugh by Julie Swetnick that she later walked back, and allegations that Republican Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan ignored and covered up sexual abuse when he was an assistant coach for Ohio State University’s wrestling team decades ago.
In support of the idea that the allegations into him are partisan, Gaetz brought up what he said is a reluctance to investigate the business dealings of President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden.
Gaetz also noted that he defended Democratic California Rep. Katie Hill’s “throuple” and her having a relationship with a former female campaign staff member, which eventually led to her resigning from Congress.
Claims of conspiracy: Gaetz has repeatedly suggested that the allegations against him and the leaks about the content of the investigation are part of a plot to thwart his activities that challenge the establishment class in Washington.
In the op-ed, Gaetz said that claims materialized “shortly after I decided to take on the most powerful institutions in the Beltway: the establishment; the FBI; the Biden Justice Department; the Cheney political dynasty; even the Justice Department under Trump,” saying that “just like the mafia, the D.C. swamp protects its ‘made men'” and that “partisan crooks in Merrick Garland’s Justice Department want to pervert the truth and the law to go after me.”
In January, Gaetz traveled to Wyoming to encourage a primary challenge to Rep. Liz Cheney, the No. 3 House Republican.
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Side story: Gaetz said that the Department of Justice does not want to investigate “evident extortion of a congressman.”
Gaetz said that the investigation into him is related to thwarting a separate FBI investigation into an alleged scheme to secure a $25 million loan payment from his father, Don Gaetz. On Wednesday, the Washington Examiner reported screenshots, an email chain, and a typed document in Gaetz’s possession that purportedly support his claims about the operation.
The scheme allegedly proposed by Bob Kent said that the funds would be used to “free” ex-FBI agent Robert Levinson from Iran. Kent, who has long been insistent of Levinson’s whereabouts though Levinson is presumed dead, would then either have made an investigation into Gaetz disappear or secure a pardon from Biden. Gaetz also alleged that former federal prosecutor and Levinson family attorney David McGee was part of the scheme, which McGee has denied.
Skeptics of Gaetz note that any shakedown attempt by Kent could be completely separate from the investigation into possible sexual misconduct and not related to a DOJ plot against him.
