Matt Gaetz, President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Justice Department, was previously investigated over allegations of sex trafficking of a 17-year-old girl — a federal investigation that ultimately yielded no criminal charges.
Gaetz — a member of the House of Representatives from Florida and one of Trump’s most loyal foot soldiers on Capitol Hill — has long denied the allegations and was told on February 15, 2023 that the Justice Department was ending its investigation without charging him set.
“We just spoke with the DOJ and have been informed that they have completed their investigation into Congressman Gaetz and charges related to sex trafficking and obstruction of justice and have decided not to file charges against him,” Gaetz’s attorneys said when.
Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee on July 16.
Before resigning from Congress after Trump’s election as attorney general on Wednesday, Gaetz remained under investigation by the bipartisan House Ethics Committee, which is investigating whether he engaged in sexual misconduct and illegal drug use.
NBC News reported in 2021 that federal investigators were looking into Gaetz’s travels with women to the Bahamas and specifically whether those women were paid to travel for sex, which could violate federal law, a law enforcement official and another person said was familiar with the matter.
At the time of reporting, a spokesperson for Gaetz said: “Rep. Gaetz never paid for sex nor had sex with an underage girl. What started as blaring headlines about ‘sex trafficking’ has now turned into a general angling about vacations and consensual relationships with adults.”
Law enforcement sources have said the investigation stemmed from an investigation into Joel Micah Greenberg, a former friend of Gaetz and former tax commissioner in Seminole County, Florida. Greenberg pleaded guilty in May 2021 to several crimes, including sex trafficking of a 17-year-old girl.
Federal prosecutors also investigated in the summer of 2021 whether Gaetz allegedly obstructed justice during a phone call with a witness in a possible sex crimes investigation, a law enforcement source said.
The obstruction investigation, which stemmed from an investigation into whether Gaetz had an inappropriate relationship with a minor, was first reported by Politico, which cited two sources familiar with the matter.
A spokesperson for Gaetz, who has not been charged with any crime in that investigation and has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing, scoffed at the time of news of the obstruction investigation.
“Congressman Gaetz seeks justice, he does not obstruct it,” the spokesperson said in a written statement.
“After two months there is still no allegation of wrongdoing, and now the ‘story’ is changing again.”
Also in the summer of 2021, the FBI investigated and secured the Justice Department’s guilty plea from a man involved in a plot to take down Gaetz’s father, Don Gaetz, for $25 million.
Stephen Alford, 62, of Fort Walton Beach, Florida, said he could help Matt Gaetz obtain a presidential pardon, authorities said.
Alford said he could help free former FBI agent Robert Levinson from Iran for $25 million from Don Gaetz and secure Matt in return. Gaetz’s pardon from the Biden administration, claiming he had access to President Joe Biden.
Matt Gaetz has said the charges stemmed from the extortion scheme.
Gaetz told the House Ethics Committee in September that he was done working with the panel, which had asked him for a list of adult sexual partners over the past seven years.
In a letter to the committee and later to reporters, Gaetz denounced the investigation as “not the business of Congress.”
“They’re just curious, that’s none of their business,” Gaetz told NBC News in late September.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
