The House Ethics Committee investigating Congressman Matt Goetz has contacted the woman with whom the congressman had sex when she was a 17-year-old minor, according to a source familiar with the committee’s work.
The previously unreported scope is a sign that the GOP-led panel’s investigation into the Florida Republican has recently expanded to include questions about sex-crime allegations.
Sources said the committee also contacted the Justice Department requesting material from its investigation into Gaetz, which includes allegations of lobbying violations, sex trafficking and possible obstruction of justice. The federal investigation, which also included allegations that he had sex with a minor, ended in 2023 without charges against the congressman.
Goetz has repeatedly denied wrongdoing, including having sex with minors or paying for sex.
“These claims were not true, never were true, and the people who spread these lies were exposed, charged and imprisoned,” Goetz said in response to CNN on Wednesday.
The Ethics Commission’s appeal to the young woman and the Department of Justice comes amid a new wave of investigative activity, including reaching out to numerous other witnesses and beginning to conduct witness interviews. The increased activity under Republican leadership is notable given that the committee’s investigation was launched by House Democrats in 2021.
Goetz, who led the charge to impeach former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, personally blamed McCarthy for the committee’s renewed investigation under the California Republican’s watch.
But McCarthy has repeatedly denounced those allegations and said Goetz worked to remove the former speaker because of the ethics investigation.
“I don’t believe they’re conservatives,” McCarthy said in November, referring to the eight Republicans who voted to remove him. “It’s driven by Gaetz and it’s all based on an ethics complaint that happened in the last Congress. He would abandon his country to try to protect himself from what would come out as the truth.
The Ethics Commission and the Ministry of Justice declined to comment.
The Justice Department should not comply with a voluntary request from the House Ethics Committee, said Norman Eisen, who served as counsel to House Democrats during the first impeachment of former President Donald Trump.
“If a request seems reasonable, as part of the normal legislative-executive clearance process, the Justice Department will sometimes release some information,” Eisen said, “but they tend to withhold sensitive investigative material.”
Even when the House issues a subpoena, the Justice Department typically withholds much of its internal investigative material, Eisen said. “Sometimes they will provide concrete proof when the House shows a strong need and is unable to obtain it in any other way,” he added.
In late 2020, under Trump-appointed Attorney General Bill Barr, the Justice Department opened an investigation into allegations that Goetz may have had sexual contact with a minor. The investigation expanded over the years before the Justice Department formally decided last year not to charge the congressman.
As part of the growing investigation, Joel Greenberg, a former Florida tax collector and close Goetz confidant, pleaded guilty in 2021 to six federal charges, including soliciting and paying the minor in Goetz’s sex charge.
The Ethics Committee, then controlled by Democrats, initially began its investigation into Gaetz in 2021, publicly announcing that it was looking into a number of allegations, including that Gaetz violated sex-trafficking laws, shared inappropriate images or videos on the House floor , used illegal drugs , converted campaign funds to personal use and accepted a bribe, among other allegations.
The committee suspended its investigation at the request of the Department of Justice, which was simultaneously investigating the allegations, but resumed its work after the DOJ concluded its investigation without bringing charges.
A source familiar with the panel’s work previously told CNN that the Justice Department’s decision not to bring charges against Goetz has no bearing on what the panel will and will not investigate. The commission plans to look into the same allegations they looked into when they began the investigation in 2021, the source told CNN.
