The Justice Department is investigating Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) for possible sexual relations with a 17-year-old girl, three people briefed on the matter told The New York Times on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
The staunch conservative and Donald Trump ally is also under investigation for possibly paying for her to travel with him across state lines, which would violate federal sex trafficking laws because of her age.<\/p>\n
According to the Times\u2019 sources, the DOJ launched its investigation in the final months of the Trump presidency. Gaetz, 38, told the Times that the DOJ informed his legal team he was the subject of the probe but not the target, and added he believed there may be some bad faith accusations at play.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI have a suspicion that someone is trying to recategorize my generosity to ex-girlfriends as something more untoward,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Gaetz elaborated in an interview with Axios, saying that \u201cthe allegations of sexual misconduct against me are false.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are rooted in an extortion effort against my family for $25 million \u2026 in exchange for making this case go away.\u201d\u00a0A former Justice Department employee is behind the extortion effort, he claimed.<\/p>\n
He then began tweeting about the ordeal, claiming the FBI had his father, a former leader of the Florida Senate, wearing a wire to \u201ccatch these criminals.\u201d<\/p>\n
Axios said Gaetz sounded \u201cshaken\u201d during the interview. When asked what he thought possible charges could relate to, he said: \u201cI have definitely, in my single days, provided for women I\u2019ve dated. You know, I\u2019ve paid for flights, for hotel rooms. I\u2019ve been, you know, generous as a partner. I think someone is trying to make that look criminal when it is not.\u201d<\/p>\n
If found guilty of the crime, Gaetz could face a heavy sentence. Notably, he was the sole member of Congress in 2017 to vote against a law giving the federal government more power to prosecute human trafficking, saying his constituents did not want him to \u201ccreate more federal government.\u201d<\/p>\n
He has also been supportive of QAnon, the baseless right-wing conspiracy theory that Democrats are part of a cannibalistic, satanic child sex trafficking ring, by refusing to vote on a bill condemning its followers and supporting freshman Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who has propped up several QAnon conspiracy theories.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Earlier Tuesday, Axios reported that Gaetz had privately told his inner circle he was considering retiring from Congress to take a job at the right-wing outlet Newsmax. But the Florida representative had once mulled the idea of running for the Senate in Alabama, sources said in 2019, and he spent much of the Trump administration building his national profile.\u00a0<\/p>\n