Another day, another allegation against would-be attorney general Matt Gaetz that would have been disqualifying in any other administration, but may turn out to be nothing more than a blip on the road to running the Justice Department under Donald Trump.
In this case, those allegations come from lawyer Joel Leppard, who represents two women who provided closed-door testimony to the House Ethics Committee concerning Gaetz that was reportedly set to be revealed by the congressional panel before the GOP congressman was nominated by Trump and resigned from the House. Speaking to ABC News, Leppard said his clients told the House committee, which was investigating Gaetz for alleged sexual misconduct and other allegations of unethical conduct, that the longtime Trump ally paid for them to travel to New York City and have sex with him on at least two occasions, including in January 2019, when they watched him appear on an episode of the Fox News show Outnumbered, and then attended a production of Pretty Woman, a.k.a. the most famous story of a woman being paid in exchange for sex.
“[The women] testified that they met up with Matt Gaetz in New York in January of 2019 for his appearance on Fox News,” Leppard told ABC. “Gaetz paid them for the tickets to come to New York for the trip. They were asked to go and have sex with Rep. Gaetz, and then they could go out and see a show that they wanted to see that night. So essentially, take care of things, and then later on, they could have their fun…. Both of my clients testified that they had sex with Rep. Gaetz and that the payments they received from him were in part for sexual favors.”
Leppard also told ABC News that his clients informed the Ethics Committee that Gaetz allegedly had sex with them on 10–15 occasions, primarily at “drug-fueled parties” and were financially compensated “on many occasions by the congressman.” In a separate interview with CBS News on Monday, Leppard told reporter Major Garrett, that one of his clients told the committee that she allegedly saw Gaetz have sex with a 17-year-old in July 2017, six months after he was sworn in as a congressman.
Gaetz has long denied any and all wrongdoing. In a statement, a spokesperson for the Trump transition team told ABC News: “These are baseless allegations intended to derail the second Trump administration. The Biden Justice Department investigated Gaetz for years and cleared him of wrongdoing.”
