Republican Matt Gaetz faces calls to resign from member of his own party
The House ethics committee on Friday announced it will open an investigation into the Republican congressman Matt Gaetz, amid a widening scandal involving allegations related to sex trafficking.
In a statement the committee said it was aware of the public allegations that Gaetz may have engaged in “sexual misconduct and/or illicit drug use, shared inappropriate images or videos on the House floor, misused state identification records, converted campaign funds to personal use, and/or accepted a bribe, improper gratuity, or impermissible gift, in violation of House Rules, laws, or other standards of conduct.”
Since the New York Times reported that Gaetz, a close ally of Donald Trump, was under investigation by the Department of Justice over whether he had a sexual relationship with a 17year-old, the 38-year-old Florida congressman has faced a torrent of accusations ranging from alleged sexual misconduct to accusations of impropriety.
Gaetz has forcefully denied all the allegations against him.
He is also now facing calls to resign from a member of his own party.
Adam Kinzinger, a Republican from Illinois, wrote: “Matt Gaetz needs to resign” in a tweet posted on Thursday, linking to a Daily Beast article which claims Gaetz paid $900 to an accused sex trafficker.
The congressman has refused to step down, despite calls from Democrats, but will face renewed scrutiny after Kinzinger became the first prominent member of the Republican party to also demand Gaetz resign.
The Daily Beast reported that Gaetz sent Joel Greenberg, a friend who is accused of crimes including sex trafficking a 17-year-old girl and is said to be negotiating a plea deal with prosecutors, a payment of $900 over Venmo in May 2018.
The next day, according to the Daily Beast, Greenberg used the same app to send payments totaling $900 to three young women. Greenberg captioned the payments to the women as: “Tuition”, “School” and “School”.
After the Daily Beast approached Gaetz for comment he responded through a PR firm: “The rumors, gossip and self-serving misstatements of others will be addressed in due course by my legal team.”
On Thursday lawyers said Greenberg was planning to strike a plea deal with prosecutors. Greenberg faces charges including one count of sex trafficking involving a 17-year-old girl, stalking and wire fraud.
NBC News reported that prosecutors are examining Gaetz and Greenberg’s relationship, and whether they “used the internet to search for women they could pay for sex”. Also under investigation is whether Gaetz paid women to travel to the Bahamas for sex, according to NBC News.
Over the past two weeks numerous reports have emerged of Gaetz’s dubious behavior.
CNN reported that Gaetz, sometimes on the floor of the House, showed other lawmakers naked pictures of women he claimed to have slept with, while allegations re-emerged that Gaetz had created a game with a point-scoring system for sleeping with members of staff or fellow politicians.
Gaetz was elected to the House in 2016, the same year Trump was elected president, and quickly tied his fortunes to Trump.
He became one of Trump’s stoutest defenders, making frequent appearances on Fox News, and in 2018 Gaetz was one of 18 House Republicans who nominated Trump for the Nobel peace prize.
In January Gaetz traveled to Wyoming to hold a rally against Liz Cheney, one of the state’s US senators, due to her perceived disloyalty to Trump.
Gaetz may have wanted something from Trump in return. This week the New York Times reported that in the last days of Trump’s presidency Gaetz asked the White House for “blanket pre-emptive pardons for himself and unidentified congressional allies for any crimes they may have committed”.