Matt Gaetz faces new allegations as House Ethics Committee probes underage sex claims

A central figure in a Justice Department investigation into sex trafficking allegations involving Matt Gaetz informed the House Ethics Committee that the former congressman had sexual relations with her when she was 17, according to a recent report.

The woman, now in her 20s, was subpoenaed by the ethics panel this summer and testified that she had sexual encounters with Gaetz while she was a minor still in high school, ABC News reported on Thursday.

Gaetz, a Florida Republican, strongly denied the allegations.

“These allegations are invented and would constitute false testimony to Congress,” Gaetz stated in a message to The Post. “This false smear following a three-year criminal investigation should be viewed with great skepticism.”

While the DOJ informed Gaetz last year that he wouldn’t face charges from their investigation, the House Ethics Committee has continued its own probe into the former congressman, who resigned from Congress on Wednesday after being nominated by President-elect Donald Trump to serve as attorney general.

The ethics committee was reportedly scheduled to vote on Friday on whether to make its findings public, according to Punchbowl News.

Sources told ABC News that the ethics panel interviewed at least six women who claimed they partied with Gaetz and received payments from his former friend, Joel Greenberg.

Greenberg, a former Florida tax official, pleaded guilty to multiple federal charges, including sex trafficking, in May 2021.

As part of his plea deal, Greenberg admitted to recruiting women for commercial sex acts, paying over $70,000 from 2016 to 2018, including to at least one underage girl – the same individual who testified before the ethics panel that she had sex with Gaetz while underage, ABC News reported.

Greenberg’s plea deal states that the girl “represented that she was an adult” when they met, but that he “acted in reckless disregard” and had a “reasonable opportunity to observe” her age when he trafficked her for sex.

The House Ethics Committee also obtained a sworn statement from Gaetz’s former girlfriend, who claimed drugs and the underage girl Gaetz allegedly had relations with were present at a July 2017 party attended by Trump’s attorney general pick, as per ABC News.

Gaetz has consistently denied any misconduct.

He has accused Greenberg and the alleged sex-trafficking victim of being part of a “plot to frame me.”