Woman tells congressional ethics panel she saw Matt Gaetz have sex with minor at Florida House party, lawyer says

A woman told the investigating House Ethics Panel matt getz His lawyer said Friday that he saw the former congressman having sex with a minor at a party in Florida.

“My client testified to the House Ethics Committee that he witnessed Rep. Gaetz having sex with a minor at a house party in Orlando in 2017,” attorney Joel LePard said. nbc news,

Lepard said the woman told the committee about the alleged inappropriate sexual encounter in April.

The lawyer, who said he represents two witnesses who testified to the panel, insisted that the Ethics Committee release its findings related to sexual misconduct allegations against President-elect Donald Trump. Attorney General’s Choice,

LePard argued, “The American people deserve to know the truth about the man who wants to be the top law enforcement official in the country.”

Spokespeople for Leopard and Gaetz did not immediately respond to The Post’s requests for comment.

The revelation comes a day after ABC News reported that the key person in the Justice Department’s investigation into sex trafficking allegations involving Gaetz told the House Ethics Committee that the Florida Republican had sex with her when she was 17. .

According to the outlet, the woman, now 20, was subpoenaed by the ethics panel over the summer and testified that Gaetz had sexual relations with her when she was a minor and in high school.

The Justice Department informed Gaetz last year that it would not bring charges against him related to the investigation, but the House Ethics Committee is conducting a separate investigation into the former congressman, who abruptly resigned on Wednesday after being nominated for leadership by Trump. Had resigned from Congress. DOJ.

Gaetz told The Post on Thursday that the woman’s allegations were “false smears.”

“These allegations are fabricated and will constitute perjury to Congress,” Gaetz said in a statement. “This false smear after a three-year criminal investigation should be viewed with great skepticism.”

Gaetz has previously accused his accuser, as well as his former friend Joel Greenberg, of attempting to “frame” him.

“The committee’s key witness, Joel Greenberg, is a pathological liar who enlists others in his lies,” Gaetz wrote in a September post on X, which he called his “final response” to the ethics investigation.

“On July 10, 2024, I provided positive evidence of my innocence to the Committee by documenting a ‘smoking gun’ contemporary, jailhouse writing, conspiracy to frame me, involving both Joel Greenberg and his victims. “This was corroborated by two former federal agents who interviewed the jailhouse informant who revealed the plot against me,” he said.

Greenberg, a former local tax official in Florida, convicted on multiple federal chargesIn May 2021, including sex trafficking.

As part of the plea deal, Greenberg admitted that he recruited women for commercial sex acts and paid them more than $70,000 from 2016 to 2018, including at least one underage girl. Who was the woman who told the ethics panel that Gaetz had sex with her as a minor, ABC News reported.

Greenberg’s plea deal states that when the woman met him he “acted that she was an adult” but that he “acted recklessly” and that he had a “reasonable opportunity to see” that she was 18 when he trafficked her for sex. Was younger than.

By leaving Congress, Gaetz, 42, is no longer subject to the jurisdiction of the House Ethics Committee – ending the investigation and denying the panel the opportunity to release its findings – but several senators have rejected the panel’s report on Gaetz from the upper echelons. There is a demand to first see that the Chamber is considering whether he should be confirmed for the cabinet post or not.