READ: House Ethics Committee’s report on Matt Gaetz

The investigators found “substantial evidence” that Gaetz violated House rules and other standards of conduct “prohibiting prostitution, statutory rape, illicit drug use, impermissible gifts, special favors or privileges, and obstruction of Congress.”

The panel listed over $90,000 in payments to 12 women — including a 17-year-old — that the committee “determined were likely in connection with sexual activity and/or drug use.”

The report found that Gaetz allegedly twice had sex with the 17-year-old, described as “Victim A,” at a 2017 party. She had just completed her junior year in high school.

“Victim A” recalled receiving $400 on the night in question “which she understood to be payment for sex,” the report found. “Victim A said that she did not inform Representative Gaetz that she was under 18 at the time, nor did he ask her age,” the committee wrote.

The report states that it is a felony for someone aged 24 or older to engage in sexual activity with a 16- or 17-year-old under Florida’s statutory rape law.

The committee noted that all the women who gave evidence said the sexual encounters with Gaetz were consensual. But one woman told investigators, “When I look back on certain moments, I feel violated.”

The panel wrote that it did not find Gaetz violated federal sex trafficking laws, writing that “although Representative Gaetz did cause the transportation of women across state lines for purposes of commercial sex, the Committee did not find evidence that any of those women were under 18 at the time of travel, nor did the Committee find sufficient evidence to conclude that the commercial sex acts were induced by force, fraud, or coercion.”

The committee claimed to have seen texts in which Gaetz made references to drugs as “party favors,” “vitamins,” or “rolls,” and the report also accused him of setting up a fake email account from his Capitol Hill office “for the purpose of purchasing marijuana.”