A slew of damning texts were included in the House Ethics probe into Matt Gaetz that was made public Monday.
Gaetz, who stands accused of paying women and a 17-year-old high schooler for sex, allegedly messaged about his sordid encounters and went as far as criticizing one woman for giving him only a brief “drive-by” meeting before “ditching” him because she was tired.
House investigators also reviewed texts where Gaetz allegedly asked women to bring drugs—like marijuana “cartridges” and “rolls”—with them to their meetings, where he’d allegedly reimburse them in addition to paying for sexual favors.
Joel Greenberg, a former Seminole County tax collector, is serving 11 years in a Florida prison. / Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel/TNS/Sipa USA / Alamy
Other texts, between a woman and Gaetz’ convicted-sex-trafficker-associate Joel Greenberg, peeled back the curtain on how the two men allegedly found and met with women they paid for sex. In one text thread, which includes a photo of a smiling Gaetz, Greenberg allegedly texted a woman about a $400 “meet up” that’d include himself, Gaetz, the woman he was texting and her friend. He apparently met the woman on SeekingArrangement.com.
“$400 is not a problem,” Greenberg wrote. “Are you both old enough to drink?”
A few messages later, the photo of Gaetz, now 42, was shared—perhaps to get approval that he was attractive enough.
Texts between Joel Greenberg and a woman who Matt Gaetz is accused of paying to sleep with. / House Ethics Committee
“Oooh my friend thinks he’s really cute!” the anonymous woman, who was then 20-years-old, responded.
Greenberg allegedly wrote back: “Well, he’s down here only for the day, we work hard and play hard… Have you ever tried molly.”
The woman involved in those texts later met up with Gaetz, the report alleges. Investigators said Gaetz became a repeat customer of hers and paid her $2,000 over the years. He was still following her on social media at the time of the report’s publishing.
In another text exchange viewed by lawmakers, they allege that Gaetz invited a woman on a private plane with him to Key West on May 19, 2017. He said she’d be joining an “adventurous group” of two guys and four girls.
Gaetz and the woman took a photo that same day in Orlando, showing Gaetz in “a casual shirt with his arm around her in a dimly lit bar.” She was also said to have been photographed in front of a helicopter with Gaetz that day, who had paid her $600 to be there.
Other alleged texts showed that Gaetz’s alleged sexual encounters weren’t limited to Florida—though the report specifies that the majority of his meet-ups occurred with students in the Orlando area. He’s also accused of paying two women to fly to New York to meet him and allegedly asked them to bring “party favors” with them. The committee said those women were later paid for having sex with him, too.
Gaetz wasn’t always so willing to pay, however, according to the report. Texts between women who met with Gaetz and his then-girlfriend suggested that on at least one occasion, he allegedly hoped to receive sexual favors for free. In other texts, a woman complained that “Matt never paid me.”
“The guys [Gaetz and Greenberg] wanted me to share that they are a little limited in their cash flow this weekend,” a text from Gaetz’s then-girlfriend read, according to the report. “Matt was like, if it can be more of a customer appreciation week…”
Later texts included in the report suggested the women agreed to Gaetz’s request for a free meet-up.
“Btw Matt also mentioned he is going to be a bit generous cause of the ‘customer appreciation’ thing last time,” a text from months later read, according to the report.
Another text showed that Gaetz once cut a check for $1,500 to pay for a student’s online class.
After the women explained why she needed the cash, Gaetz allegedly asked, “How much is it?” and “When is it due?” before answering succinctly, “On it.”
“You are the best human to walk the earth,” the woman responded.
The House Ethics Committee said it found “substantial evidence” of statutory rape, prostitution, and illicit drug use by Gaetz between 2017 and 2020.
The report was released in full for the first time on Monday afternoon, despite fervent pushback from Gaetz and other Republicans to have it tabled since he was no longer in office.
Gaetz has previously denied many of the allegations levied by the committee, including a claim that he paid to have sex with a minor. The Department of Justice previously investigated that allegation and dismissed the case after a years-long investigation.
House investigators came to a different verdict in their probe, however.
“The record overwhelmingly suggests that Representative Gaetz had sex with multiple women” at a 2017 house party in Florida, the report stated, “for which they were paid.” That was Gaetz’s first year in Congress.
Matt Gaetz hit the campaign trail with Donald Trump on a number of occasions in 2024 and spoke at the RNC. / Wally Skalij/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
Among those he’s accused of paying for sex was a 17-year-old girl who had apparently just finished her junior year of high school. She testified that she was handed $400 in cash by Gaetz after he slept with her.
The teenager testified to investigators that she did not tell Gaetz she was a minor and that he never asked for her age.
Gaetz denied having sex with a minor in a written response to the committee and also denied using any illicit drugs—despite investigators finding “substantial evidence” to the contrary, including bogus email accounts that were set up from his Capitol Hill office “for the purpose of purchasing marijuana.”
The House Ethics report was briefly threatened to not be released at all after Gaetz bowed out of Congress last month to be Donald Trump’s attorney general appointee—a title he held only briefly after GOP Senators signaled they would not vote to confirm him.
With Gaetz no longer being an elected official, he argued the Ethics Committee had lost its jurisdiction and that the report should remain under wraps.
Matt Gaetz won re-election in November, but said he doesn’t plan to return to the House of Representatives. / Mike Blake / REUTERS
Details about the report’s findings began leaking out, however, and pressure was put on the bipartisan committee to make it public. Despite the protestations of some GOP representatives, the committee voted in secret earlier this month in favor of making Gaetz’s dirty laundry public.
Gaetz got out in front of the report with a statement last week.
“My 30’s were an era of working very hard—and playing hard too,” he said. “It’s embarrassing, though not criminal, that I probably partied, womanized, drank and smoked more than I should have earlier in life. I live a different life now.”
While the report contains damning allegations, many of them had been made previously against Gaetz. The report first leaked to CBS News on Monday morning and was made public hours later. You can read the report in full here.
Gaetz did not respond to a request for comment from the Daily Beast, but he took to X to air out his gripes with the report’s contents and that it was ever released. He was particularly adamant that the report did not include full testimony from his alleged victims, which he claims would have proven he did not pay some women for sex.
