Attorney General Merrick Garland declined to prosecute former Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., despite a trail of text messages and testimony from seemingly scores of women detailing the Republican lawmaker’s alleged penchant for buying sex, including from a woman he later learned was under 18. Garland’s Justice Department then obstructed congressional investigators, claiming an internal policy — not a statute on the books — barring the sharing of any information, damning or exculpatory, that it uncovered during its own investigation into the congressman.
Gaetz was never charged with a federal crime even though his friend, former Seminole County tax collector Joel Greenberg, pleaded guilty over similar allegations. Text messages revealed in the House Ethics Committee report released Monday show Greenberg explicitly facilitated the purchase of sex for his friend in Congress, even sharing a photo of Gaetz in one of the exchanges (followed by the question: “Have you ever tried molly”).
In May 2021, Greenberg pleaded guilty to charges of soliciting and paying for sex with a minor, among other federal crimes, and was sentenced to 11 years in prison. At the time, federal investigators were still investigating Gaetz and whether he “broke federal sex trafficking, prostitution and public corruption laws,” CNN reported, an investigation that would formally end in February 2023.
Prosecuting a crime in an actual court of law is rather different than alleging one in the court of public opinion. A decision to not pursue charges does not necessarily mean someone is innocent in the eyes of the law, but could reflect the perceived difficulty of securing a conviction — of, perhaps, a desire to avoid a political firestorm.
In its report, the House Ethics Committee said it had found “substantial evidence” of Gaetz breaking federal and state laws, noting that an adult man having sex with a 17-year-old constitutes statutory rape in Florida (where the statute of limitations has already expired). Not only did Gaetz “regularly” pay for sex, but he also was using and purchasing drugs from his office on Capitol Hill, investigators allege; at one point, he abused his influence as a member of Congress to help a woman he was having sex with obtain a passport, falsely claiming she was constituent. Investigators also accuse Gaetz of obstructing justice, a federal offense, noting that “some women cited a fear of retaliation from the congressman when declining to speak on the record with the Committee.”
In sum, “the Committee concluded there was substantial evidence that Representative Gaetz violated House Rules, state and federal laws, and other standards of conduct prohibiting prostitution, statutory rape, illicit drug use, acceptance of impermissible gifts, the provision of special favors and privileges, and obstruction of Congress.”
The report also accuses the Department of Justice of obstruction, noting that investigators were repeatedly stymied in their attempts to obtain information on Gaetz and his accusers, the department citing a policy against sharing evidence in cases where it has not brought charges.
The argument against pursuing at least some federal charges does find support from the committee. Although alleging that Gaetz had sex with a minor — more than once, including in front of witnesses at a party, paying $400 to a girl who “had just completed her junior year of high school” — investigators note potential lines of defense. Speaking to investigators, “Victim A” said she did not tell Gaetz her age at the time nor did he ask it; she also does not allege that the sex was nonconsensual, a key factor for federal prosecutors, though she noted that she was “under the influence of ecstasy during her sexual encounters with Representative Gaetz,” who she said was using cocaine (per investigators, “at least one women felt that the use of drugs at the parties and events they attended may have ‘impair[ed their] ability to really know what was going on or fully consent’”).
“The Committee did not obtain substantial evidence that Representative Gaetz violated federal sex trafficking laws,” the report notes. “Transportation of an individual for purposes of commercial sex could violate such laws if the individual was a minor, or if the sexual activity occurred through force, fraud, or coercion.”
Put another way: Gaetz has plausible deniability on his side, at least on that particular charge. Former federal prosecutors also told Politico that the Department of Justice is reluctant to prosecute commercial sex crimes in the absence of clear coercion.
“It’s a crime, it’s a statute on the books that they can prosecute — but it’s not a high-priority thing,” Robert Bittman told the outlet. “It’s not something that’s often prosecuted, and really would only be prosecuted if there are significant, other aggravating factors.”
But critics of the Garland-led DOJ can point to Gaetz’s status as a public official: Shouldn’t lawbreaking by the most powerful be prosecuted as an example for others in the service of good, honest government? They can also point to Joel Greenberg: Here was someone who was indeed charged for trafficking the 17-year-old “Victim A” — a minor who he explicitly arranged to have sex with his friend and U.S. congressman, Matt Gaetz, even sharing a photo to remove any doubt (“Oooh my friend thinks he’s really cute!” the 20-year-old intermediary replied). Greenberg’s lawyer insisted he too had no idea that the girl was underage, telling reporters after his sentencing that the minor had advertised herself as being over 18 on a website for “sugar daddy” relationships.
Greenberg’s claimed ignorance did not save him from a federal prison. And he was willing to testify against his former associate; congressional investigators likewise spoke with more than two dozen witnesses of Gaetz’s alleged behavior and compiled a list of 15 women “who were alleged to have received payments from him or on his behalf relating to sexual misconduct and illicit drug use.”
The decision not to prosecute Gaetz is legally defensible, at least judging by the former prosecutors willing to defend it and congressional investigators’ admission that the evidence they managed to obtain — without much help from the Department of Justice — would likely not be enough to convict Gaetz, at least on a charge of sex trafficking a child. But it’s also true that Gaetz could have been charged, too: Greenberg was, after all, and Gaetz likewise could be argued to have acted “in reckless disregard of the fact” that the girl with whom he was engaging in a “commercial sex act” could have been a minor.
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In terms of appearances, it at least looks like Gaetz benefited from his notoriety. He was not just some podunk tax collector, but a prominent ally of President-elect Donald Trump — so close to Trump, in fact, that he was put forward as Merrick Garland’s replacement. Was that a factor? According to CNN, the “final decision” to not charge Gaetz “was made by Department of Justice leadership after investigators recommended against charges last year.”
That decision came despite Greenberg spelling out his arrangement with Gaetz. In a text message to Roger Stone, from whom he was seeking help in getting a pardon from then-President Trump, Greenberg said he’d told his lawyers all about the congressman and his escapades. “They know he paid me to pay the girls and that he and I both had sex with the girl who was underage,” Greenberg wrote in December 2020, The Daily Beast reported.
Garland’s four-year tenure has been characterized by a hesitancy to pursue high-profile cases against alleged criminals who are top Republicans, it taking him more than a year and a half to appoint a special prosecutor to look into Trump’s actions on Jan. 6, 2021, and his retention of classified documents. In that case, according to the Washington Post, “A wariness about appearing partisan, institutional caution, and clashes over how much evidence was sufficient to investigate the actions of Trump and those around him all contributed to the slow pace.”
That sure sounds a lot like the Gaetz saga, too — bolstered by the fact that an alleged co-conspirator is behind bars while the man who was a member of Congress remains free, just as dozens of rioters are imprisoned while the man accused of inciting them is returning to the White House.
Tristan Snell, a former New York state prosecutor who investigated Trump and his businesses, put it this way: “Sex trafficking, sex trafficking of a minor, statutory rape, cocaine/ecstasy use, bribery, abuse of his office, obstruction of justice,” he wrote on social media. “Federal prosecutors knew ALL this about Matt Gaetz[.] And yet they didn’t charge him with anything — they let him walk.”
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