GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz investigated for possible sex trafficking of girl, 17, report says — he claims extortion
The Department of Justice is investigating whether or not Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida had a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old woman and paid for her travels with him, The New York Times reported Tuesday.
The authorities is analyzing whether or not Gaetz violated federal sex trafficking legal guidelines, in keeping with the newspaper, which cited three individuals briefed on the probe. The congressman has not been charged.
The Justice Department declined to remark to CNBC on the Times report.
Gaetz, a 38-year-old conservative firebrand and shut ally of former President Donald Trump, in an announcement Tuesday denied the reported allegations towards him. He mentioned that he is being threatened in a $25 million “organized criminal extortion” scheme involving a former Justice Department official.
Gaetz went on to say he was cooperating with the FBI and that his father “has even been wearing a wire at the FBI’s direction to catch these criminals.”
“The planted leak to the New York Times tonight was intended to thwart that investigation,” Gaetz claimed Tuesday night in an amended model of the assertion, which initially mentioned the story had been leaked to the FBI.
“No part of the allegations against me are true, and the people pushing these lies are targets of the ongoing extortion investigation,” Gaetz’s assertion mentioned.
The congressman mentioned in his assertion that the extortion try has been waged towards him and his household “over the past several weeks.” But the DOJ’s examination of Gaetz was opened within the last months of Trump’s administration beneath then-Attorney General William Barr, two sources instructed the Times.
The Justice Department instructed Gaetz’s legal professionals that he was a topic, not the goal, of an investigation, the congressman instructed the newspaper.
Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-FL, speaks throughout a House Judiciary Committee markup of the articles of impeachment towards President Donald Trump, on Capitol Hill in Washington December 11, 2019.
Jose Luis Magana | Reuters
“I only know that it has to do with women,” Gaetz instructed the Times. “I have a suspicion that someone is trying to recategorize my generosity to ex-girlfriends as something more untoward.”
Gaetz equally instructed Axios on Tuesday that he didn’t know what the precise allegations towards him have been.
Asked what they could relate to, Gaetz instructed the outlet: “I have definitely, in my single days, provided for women I’ve dated. You know, I’ve paid for flights, for hotel rooms. I’ve been, you know, generous as a partner. I think someone is trying to make that look criminal when it is not.”
Gaetz mentioned Tuesday evening on Fox News that the “horrible allegation” towards him “is a lie.”
The declare he traveled with a 17-year-old “is verifiably false,” Gaetz mentioned, encouraging individuals to “look at my travel records and see that that is not the case.”
Gaetz has privately mentioned he is contemplating presumably leaving Congress early to take a job at conservative information outlet Newsmax, Axios reported earlier Tuesday.
