On December 23, 2024, the U.S. House Committee on Ethics released its report regarding sexual misconduct allegations made against Matt Gaetz, a former GOP Florida Congressman that President Donald Trump nominated to be the 87th Attorney General of the United States just one month before. When nominated for the Attorney General role in November, Gaetz announced his resignation from Congress; however, he withdrew himself from consideration shortly after the allegations began to surface.
The Ethics Committee’s 37-page report disclosed substantial evidence suggesting that Gaetz exchanged thousands of dollars for sex with women in violation of numerous House Rules, as well as federal and Florida state laws prohibiting prostitution and statutory rape.
The investigation into Gaetz began in 2021, when the U.S. Department of Justice responded to allegations that Gaetz violated federal sex trafficking laws by engaging in sexual relations with a 17-year-old (Victim A), while paying for her to travel with him. Although the Ethics Committee ultimately did not find Gaetz had engaged in sex trafficking, it did indicate that Gaetz had sexual relations with the minor victim.
Given the definition of sex trafficking under federal law, this is deeply troubling in light of the evidence reviewed and the facts the Committee set forth in the report.
On July 15, 2017, the Committee found Gaetz attended a party where he reportedly had sex with Victim A twice, once in front of other partygoers. At the time, Victim A was entering her senior year of high school. As Victim A informed the Committee, she “recalled receiving $400 in cash from Representative Gaetz that evening, which she understood to be payment for sex.”
The investigation also uncovered sexual arrangements between Gaetz and at least 12 women. While the report notes that Gaetz “did not appear to have negotiated specific payment amounts prior to engaging in sexual activity with the women he paid,” when the women were interviewed, one of the women stated that Gaetz had “a general expectation of sex” when meeting with them. Another woman, to which Gaetz allegedly paid over $5,000, approximated that “99 percent of the time” that she and Gaetz spent time together, “there was sex involved.”
The report further disclosed that Gaetz made payments to the women from his own personal Venmo, CashApp, and PayPal accounts, and additional evidence of their arrangements was found in the form of text messages and travel receipts.
With the context of the power possessed by a politician of Gaetz’s prominence in mind, it is troubling that the Ethics Committee ultimately found there was not sufficient evidence that Gaetz committed sex trafficking.
The report plainly articulates indicates that drugs were a central part of these arrangements, revealing that the adult victims may have been coerced. The report even conceded that “Gaetz’s relationship with these women involved an exploitative power imbalance.”
As for Victim A, the Ethics Committee incorrectly determined trafficking did not occur because Gaetz did not use force, fraud, or coercion to buy sex from the minor victim. In making this determination, the Committee incorrectly applies its own law: where the victim is a minor, the federal trafficking law only requires that an individual solicits, patronizes, or obtains the victim for the purpose of a commercial sex act. Force, fraud, or coercion do not need to be proven as they aren’t elements of the crime of sex trafficking minors. A child cannot consent to be bought or sold for sex.
The Ethics Committee further supported their flawed position by pointing to a lack of evidence that Gaetz was aware Victim A was a minor. Again, this is an incorrect application of the law because Congress itself eliminated the knowledge requirement for cases of child sex trafficking in 2008. Having found that Gaetz solicited a 17-year-old for a commercial sex act, the Ethics Committee again fails to call this what it really is: trafficking.
This narrative effectively illustrates the deeply troubling culture surrounding sexual exploitation in American politics, especially given the recent administration change. President Trump himself has faced several allegations of sexual misconduct, as have two of his other recent Cabinet selections.
Recently, The Financial Times reported that the Trump administration has undertaken efforts to lift the travel bans imposed on Andrew Tate and his brother, who were arrested in December of 2022 for, among other things, human trafficking offenses. The brothers returned to the United States last month and are currently under investigation by the Florida Attorney General’s Office.
In 2017, former Minnesota Senator Al Franken was accused of sexual harassment when a photograph from 2006 was released that appeared to show him groping or pretending to grope a woman’s breasts while she was asleep. Franken resigned from office in the months following. Sexual assault allegations were infamously a central focus of the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing during the confirmation of 2018 Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh. In 2021, former Governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, left office following a report by the state’s Attorney General concluding that he had sexually harassed at least 11 women. Cuomo denied the allegations, and his legal team suggested that the Attorney General had created the report in an attempt to increase her own chances of running for Governor. The subsequent Justice Department investigation supported the Attorney General’s findings, and the Justice Department recently reached a settlement with the state of New York in resolution.
Gaetz’s alleged involvement with sex trafficking, coupled with the allegations against other powerful politicians, illustrate the disproportionate power dynamic that often exists between sex buyers and the victims they exploit. This unequal stance allows sex-buyers in powerful positions to leverage their status as a means of coercing, controlling, and intimidating victims. Additionally, this status can protect powerful individuals from being held accountable for their crimes.
The CSE Institute seeks to address commercial sexual exploitation by providing policymakers with the information necessary to improve the legal response to sex trafficking and related crimes. At the heart of this work, however, is a dedication to holding those responsible for perpetrating sex crimes and exploiting vulnerable populations accountable for their actions. Doing so in a political context poses unique challenges because politicians have significant influence over the laws designed to protect victims of sexual exploitation. The motivation to discredit victims by categorizing their allegations as political attacks is high, and the partisan divide encourages a problematic culture of insulation. When allegations against a political figure emerge, it is often the tendency of their party to act in ways that attempt to shield that person from liability to protect the reputation of the party itself.
In light of these difficulties, we emphasize the importance of holding Gaetz and others in similar positions responsible for their role in exploiting victims. We stress that political power cannot be a barrier to accountability, and we urge the Committee and other investigative agencies to properly apply the laws they themselves have created.
The CSE Institute will provide updates as they become available.
This piece is part of our first-year law student blog series. Congratulations to author Annie Langhauser on being chosen!
All views expressed herein are personal to the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law or of Villanova University.