An attorney representing two women who claim to have attended up to 10 “sex parties” with Matt Gaetz will embark on a media blitz Monday, revealing new details of misconduct leveled against the former Florida congressman and prospective attorney general.
Speaking with Politico, lawyer Joel Sheppard said his clients have already told the House Ethics Committee that they attended between five and 10 “sex parties” with Gaetz between mid-2017 and the end of 2018, when he was serving his first term in Congress.
They reportedly further described the gatherings as “group sex situations” where illegal drugs were consumed, and where one of the women claims to have seen Gaetz having sex with an underage friend up against a games table.
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Gaetz, for his part, has firmly denied any allegations of wrongdoing. A spokesperson for the former Florida representative told Politico: “Merrick Garland’s DoJ cleared Matt Gaetz and didn’t charge him. Are you alleging Garland is part of a cover up?”
The Justice Department investigation into Gaetz concerned allegations, first made in 2020, that Gaetz had engaged in child sex trafficking and committed statutory rape by paying a 17-year-old girl to travel across the country in order to have sex with her.
While prosecutors eventually declined to pursue charges against the former Florida congressman, the claims prompted an investigation by the House Ethics Committee into similar allegations of underage sexual abuse, as well as drug use, illicit financial practices and, most notoriously, sharing sexually explicit images on the House floor.
Sheppard said on Monday he hopes his forthcoming media appearances will put “a lot of pressure on the [committee] to release the report,” with the body’s long-running inquiry now closed following Gaetz’s resignation from Congress last week after news broke of his nomination to be President-elect Donald Trump’s attorney general.
“My clients have already been through this several times and they really, really do not want to testify again,” Sheppard said. “Especially not on the floor of the Senate,” he added, referring to the prospective vetting process Gaetz may undergo before he is confirmed as the nation’s top prosecutor.
The former Florida representative’s sudden withdrawal from the House, just two days before the committee was expected to reveal its findings, has prompted something of a firestorm within the GOP.
House Speaker Mike Johnson has said he plans to “strongly request” the report be kept under wraps, on the basis that releasing it “is not the way we do things in the House.” Sen. Markwayne Mullins (R-OK) has said the Senate should “absolutely” have access to the committee’s findings and that whether these are released to the public should also “be a part of the negotiations.”
Gaetz isn’t the only recent nominee in Trump’s incoming Cabinet to have faced sexual misconduct allegations, with Fox News mainstay and defense secretary nominee Pete Hegseth accused of paying off a woman who alleged he sexually assaulted her in October 2017—allegations Hegseth has staunchly denied.
