Dec 23, 2024
Gaetz Report Finds 'Substantial Evidence' Of Statutory Rape
Congressional ethics investigators reported that former Rep. Matt Gaetz paid numerous women — including an underage girl — for sex.
- 21 minutes
The House Ethics Committee report
about former Representative Matt Gaetz
has been published, and the findings are,
as you might expect, damning.
They found that Gaetz committed a slew of
transgressions, most importantly statutory
rape, the 37 page report concluded.
[00:00:19]
The committee determined
there is substantial evidence
that Representative Representative Gaetz
violated House rules and other standards
of conduct prohibiting prostitution,
statutory rape, illicit drug use,
impermissible gifts, special favors or
privileges, and obstruction of Congress.
[00:00:37]
So let's start with the worst
of those findings.
The committee said it received testimony
from numerous witnesses
who said that at a 2017 party,
Gaetz had sex twice with victim A, who was
17 years old at the time and had just
[00:00:53]
completed her junior year in high school.
Victim, A recalled receiving $400 in cash
from Representative Gaetz gates
that evening,
which she understood to be payment for
sex victim A. Said that she did not inform
Representative Gates
that she was under 18 at the time.
[00:01:09]
Nor did he ask her age.
Critically, under Florida law,
it is a felony for a person
24 years of age or older to engage in
sexual activity with a 16 or 17 year old,
and gates was at the time,
around 35 years old, and the person
charged with statutory rape cannot
[00:01:28]
claim ignorance or misrepresentation
of the minor's age as a defense.
So whether or not he knew that she
was only 17, it doesn't really matter.
The report also also found
significant evidence that he paid tons
of other of age women for sex.
[00:01:43]
They cite testimony from witnesses
who told the committee that they were paid
to have sex with gates, and text messages
discussing the transactions
and Venmo and PayPal receipts.
This is reporting from CBS news.
It says from 2017 to 2020,
20 representative gates made tens of
[00:02:01]
thousands of dollars in payments to women
that the committee determined
were likely in connection
with sexual activity and or drug use,
noted the report,
which lists payments totaling more
than $90,000 to 12 different women.
[00:02:17]
All the women who testified
said the sexual encounters
with gates were consensual.
However, one woman told the committee
the use of drugs at the parties
and events that they attended may have
impaired their ability to really know
what was going on or to fully consent.
[00:02:33]
Another woman told the committee
when I look back on certain moments,
I feel violated.
The House Ethics Committee argues
in its report that Representative Gates
took advantage of
the economic vulnerability of young women
to lure them into sexual activity,
[00:02:50]
for which they received an average of a
few hundred dollars after each encounter.
Such behavior
is not generosity to ex-girlfriends,
and it does not reflect credibility.
Credibility.
To credit creditably upon the House.
[00:03:06]
There is more, but this report seems
to confirm a lot of what people
already suspected about Matt Gaetz
and his extracurricular activities will
say, to put it very, very lightly.
I'm skeptical that anything will come
from this, especially now that Gaetz
is basically out of our government.
[00:03:22]
But what have you seen so far
regarding the response from the right
to all of this,
or what are you maybe expecting to see?
Yeah.
So I'm curious what your take is going
to be on some of this stuff.
First, let me say my conclusions.
Then and then I'll ask you what you
think about some of the specifics.
[00:03:39]
So number one,
did Matt Gaetz pay for sex and drugs.
He says no.
Having looked at the evidence, the answer
appears to be an overwhelming yes he did.
So he says no, no.
I sometimes give people
women I date gifts of cash.
[00:03:56]
That seems really weird.
Okay, so anyway, I don't believe him.
Nobody believes him.
He, He very,
very likely paid for sex and drugs.
B I don't care. I've never cared.
I've told you guys that hundreds of times
throughout all of the 22 years.
[00:04:13]
Same thing for Eliot Spitzer,
governor of New York.
He was a sheriff of Wall Street,
going after the bankers and then
watch client number nine on Netflix.
And then they targeted him.
And they always look for sex when the
establishment looks to get rid of you.
They always look for sex. Same thing.
Madison Cawthorn on the right.
Spitzer now Gaetz, etc..
[00:04:31]
Okay.
Conclusion number three,
I believe that 80% of the males
in Congress have done similar things,
but since they didn't piss off anybody
in power that's in their secret file
and won't be released
unless they say something wrong.
Okay.
And remember, they had all
this information on Cawthorn and Gaetz
[00:04:48]
well before they released it.
They released it after they say things
that pisses off people in their own party,
in leadership, etc..
Point number four.
Am I worried about the 17 year old
that he seems to have slept with.
Yes, of course, of course.
[00:05:03]
Look, guys, the part that really
bothers me about that,
on top of the fact that it apparently
is statutory rape in Florida law, right?
That's that's a pretty big issue. Right.
And just to be clear on that,
the woman did I read into the details.
[00:05:18]
She said the girl at the time said
that she never revealed her age,
and gates never asked.
Okay.
But under Florida law, you have
strict scrutiny of underage sex.
If the girl is 16 or 17
and the guy is above 24, what?
[00:05:34]
That means the government doesn't care.
The state doesn't care
if you asked or didn't ask
if she told you or didn't tell you.
If you do that thing,
that you're going to be guilty of it.
Now, of course, he hasn't been charged,
let alone convicted of that,
but there seems to be
excellent evidence in that direction.
[00:05:50]
So and then it's especially rich
coming from a party that accused
everyone else of being groomers,
especially people in the LGBTQ community,
when in reality they have their
own groomer right there in Congress.
Okay. So, lastly, look,
[00:06:07]
the establishment almost always uses sex
to go after their opponents, so I hate
that they're kind of halfway like,
I like that they're exposing something
that Matt Gaetz did wrong.
I would expose what they all did wrong.
I hate how selective they are in revealing
the things that people did wrong.
[00:06:25]
And I know for a fact that no matter
whether you're on the left or the right,
if you're an outsider,
you challenge the system.
They will dig and dig and dig until they
find something that is inappropriate,
especially of a sexual nature.
And in this case, Matt Gaetz
made it stunningly easy for them
[00:06:42]
because they didn't have to dig much.
They just scratched the surface
and oh my God, all this stuff rushes out.
So the things I'm curious like,
here's two more things that are part
of what Yasmin just explained to you guys
and part of what I want to ask her about.
But this I just these are tangential,
but they bother me
[00:06:59]
when people throw this out there.
Like, the woman who said, well,
when I look back at it, I feel violated.
But when you took the $400, you didn't.
So now you're saying in retrospect,
okay, maybe that's her true feelings,
[00:07:16]
but that's an impossible standard.
That's an impossible.
So whether you're a woman or a man
out there and you had some sort of
relationship with somebody at some point
and everything was totally consensual.
And by the way, everybody points out
every single one of these instances
was consensual.
And then somebody says 20 years later
or four years later or four months later,
[00:07:35]
yeah, it was perfectly consensual.
But now I feel violated.
I don't know what to do with that. Right.
And then finally they there was that line
about how he took advantage
of the poverty stricken or whatever.
No, he went to a website
that's basically for prostitution.
So that means the guy's going there
are looking for prostitutes,
[00:07:52]
but the women that are partaking
in that are not unclear,
that they're going to get paid for sex.
Right.
So it's not like they were all like,
I don't want to.
I think prostitution should be legal.
And I principled about that.
And I don't change whether it's
a Republican or Democrat
[00:08:08]
or what the situation might be.
But if you say that prostitution should
be legalized when someone does it,
you don't get to say like, oh my God,
they should we should arrest the people
who gave them money anyway
because they were poverty stricken.
And they were.
And so they shouldn't have been allowed.
[00:08:25]
Well, should it be allowed
or shouldn't it be allowed?
Obviously people that are doing it are
not are usually not spectacularly wealthy.
They're making an economic decision.
But I think as grown ups, they get to make
that economic decision and we don't have
to infantilize them afterwards.
So that's all my opinions on that.
Yasmin, what do you think about that?
[00:08:42]
Yeah.
You know, like you,
I don't really care that he paid for sex
just as a matter of prostitution.
As a matter of principle.
Like that's that's your own prerogative.
And, yeah, I suspect
that many other people in Congress
have engaged in similar activity.
As long as it doesn't interfere
with their work, then I don't really care.
[00:09:00]
I don't love the statutory rape, though.
You know, it's wrong. It's damaging.
It's all those things.
But there's, you know, also the idea
that there is a wealthy man
who's throwing around his money
and his position to potentially,
again, you know,
depending on the circumstances, take
[00:09:15]
advantage of people who needed the money.
You know,
if they were presenting themselves
as willing to take money for sex.
And that's one thing.
But I think overall, what is confusing
about this story is exactly
what you were confused about, right?
And as women, I don't think that we've
done a very good job of explaining this
[00:09:33]
phenomenon to men, let alone to ourselves.
I don't know
if we even really understand it.
It comes from like
like it's just a feeling.
It's a thing about shame, right?
It's also about being confused
and, you know, maybe being misled and then
you maybe made a few bad decisions.
[00:09:49]
You feel bad about it,
but then you're not allowed to say,
I felt bad, I shouldn't have done this.
Or, you know, I let this happen to me
because, like, you're the one who's going
to get blamed for it, even though most
of the time you're the one being
taken advantage of in a court of law.
I don't know how to prove
something like that.
[00:10:05]
I don't know how to convince
people that, you know.
Yeah, I like said it was fine,
but I felt weird about it.
At the time.
I thought it was okay, but looking back,
it really was a violation.
I shouldn't have done that.
A lot of growth happens with people, not
just women, but a lot of growth happens,
[00:10:21]
especially in those early teenage years.
You think something's okay,
and then you look back and you're like,
that really was not okay.
What happened to me, you know, and I think
that's a relatable thing that a lot of
women have have experienced in some way,
shape or form in their own lives.
But I don't know how you
mitigate something like that.
[00:10:38]
And that's why so many of these cases
kind of, you know, get started
and they get all this support,
especially from women, because there
is some sort of empathy there.
We all kind of get it.
But then how do you explain that to a man?
How do you explain that in certain finite
terms, that the law can recognize
[00:10:55]
that a jury can convict?
Apart from like a feeling that you have.
Yeah.
So I think that's.
Yeah, yeah. Go ahead.
- Sorry.
- Yeah.
Look, I want to be clear about that.
You're totally right.
Like, so people can have regrets later
or can feel like, hey, you know what?
[00:11:11]
Maybe I was taken advantage of,
and maybe this and that, etc..
And be confused or be clear later, right?
I'm not invalidating
anybody's feelings or experiences.
I'm just saying when we get
to litigating things, we cannot say,
[00:11:26]
they changed their mind later,
even though they consented at the time.
That is not illegal.
It'll never be illegal.
It never should be illegal.
So there's a difference there.
Now, in this case, that's going
to come back to some weird irony
of the Biden Department of Justice
not prosecuting him here.
[00:11:45]
So but in the court of public opinion,
that's that's where it gets
that's where it's a gray zone.
Right? So let's say it's a senator.
I hate Senator Rick Scott. Right.
And somebody says, you know what?
I when I dated him when he was 28, we did
this and this, and now I feel violated.
[00:12:04]
And he took advantage of me. Is that fair?
It's fair for her to think that
if she really believes that.
Of course. Right.
Is it fair to announce that to the world
when we can't go back and adjudicate it?
And he can't really
defend himself on that?
I'm not sure about that,
but but to the point here with Matt Gaetz,
we don't need any of that.
[00:12:21]
And there's great evidence
on the 17 year old.
And so that's illegal.
No one disputes that.
It's a terrible thing to do.
So you just don't need to go
to tougher and tougher things to prove.
But which then gets
to the ultimate frustration here.
[00:12:38]
So I think they're selective
in their enforcement.
But okay, both things can
be true at the same time.
They can be selective.
And he might have done it.
And it looks like yeah, both things
are true in this case in my opinion.
Right.
So why didn't the Department of Justice
prosecute him?
So why are we now in this gray zone
where they chose not to bring
[00:12:55]
criminal charges against him, but they
decided to put it out in public anyway.
And so now there's only one tiny thing
that gates says in his own defense
that makes sense.
He's talking about,
oh, this is not prostitution, brother.
You're not going to win that fight.
Okay, so but but he does say, look,
at least if it was in a court of law,
[00:13:12]
I'd get to defend myself
and I'd get to call witnesses and etc..
And that part is true.
I don't know if he's asking
to get prosecuted.
Okay.
I mean, be careful what you wish for.
But why did the Biden Department of
Justice choose to put his coconspirator?
According to them,
Joel Greenberg in prison for 11 years
[00:13:30]
for the same things and then choose
not to prosecute Matt Gates.
And I have a theory.
My theory is that
the Biden Department of Justice,
like almost all other administrations,
loves the powerful and the elites.
So if that was a Joel Greenberg
who doesn't have enough power,
[00:13:46]
he's going to prison.
Right. But Matt Gates and Congress.
Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa, back up.
That's the elites.
Even if we hate them, it's the elites.
And then, of course,
they change their mind.
About a year and a half
before the election when they realized
that Trump was going to run again.
But anyway, that's my take on that too.
Yes.
Yeah.
[00:14:01]
And it is distressing because it just goes
to show that like none of these laws,
the way that they're put in place
or the way that they're enforced,
I guess more realistically,
it's not there to protect the women.
It's not there to protect the youth.
Despite what all these politicians
who in this case are
[00:14:18]
the ones committing these crimes,
say that their party platform is this,
this platform that they all support
because it really it's not about us.
It's not that they want justice
for the women who are involved
or for the underage people
who are involved in all these things.
[00:14:33]
They choose when to enforce it.
And it's so inconsistent
that it's all just politics.
It has nothing to do with us.
They're just using us
as a pawn in all of that.
And it's misogyny.
It's it's really nothing less
than misogyny in this case.
And it is obviously hypocrisy,
but it's so obvious that I almost
[00:14:50]
don't even need to make that point.
But on that note, let's move on.
Because in addition to the statutory rape
and the pain for the sex.
The investigation found
substantial evidence that gates frequently
used illicit drugs, also drugs
that the Republican Party is against.
[00:15:07]
The committee said that it obtained text
messages that he sent where he referred to
drugs as party favors, rolls or vitamins.
It also said he created a fake email
from his Capitol Hill office
for the purpose of purchasing marijuana.
The report noted that gates had
denied using illicit drugs
[00:15:25]
in his written answers to the committee.
They also found that gates had
abused his position
as a US representative surprise in 2018.
Representative gates
arranged for his chief of staff
to assist a woman with whom he engaged in
sexual activity in obtaining a passport,
[00:15:43]
falsely indicating to the US Department
of State that she was a constituent.
He also allegedly accepted a luxury trip
to the Bahamas against house rules,
and finally the committee said
that gates was not cooperative
with their investigation
and refused to sit for sworn testimony.
[00:16:02]
He did submit written answers
to some of the committee's questions.
The only sliver of good news
for Matt Gaetz coming out of this report
is that the committee did not find
sufficient evidence that gates violated
the federal sex trafficking statute.
[00:16:17]
He was previously investigated by the
Department of Justice over these claims,
but he declined to bring charges.
He allegedly transported women
across state lines for the purpose of sex,
but those women
were all 18 or older at the time.
[00:16:32]
Gates, of course,
has denied all of the accusations
and is furious that the report has been
released at all, as you mentioned, Jake.
And on Monday,
he filed a lawsuit in federal court
to block the release of the report.
And in a statement gates released
on X last week, he had this to say.
[00:16:49]
He said, in my single days,
I often sent funds to women I dated,
even some I never dated, but who asked?
I dated several of these women for years.
It's embarrassing, though not criminal,
that I probably partied
Womanized drank and smoked more
than I should have earlier in life.
[00:17:06]
I live a different life now.
He's a much better person today
than he was back then, I guess.
And today he's been on a rampage on X,
continuing to deny all the accusations and
accusing the committee of targeting him.
So, you know, of course we have
checks and balances in our government,
[00:17:22]
but these days we so rarely see people
get their comeuppance,
even when investigations are done
or when evidence is found
or when witnesses testify, whatever.
But you know, that aside, Matt Gaetz is
about to become a right wing talking head.
[00:17:38]
So one could argue that this investigation
and its findings matter even less than
they might have just a month or two ago.
So what was it all for?
Yeah, it was to make sure
that he didn't get any government jobs
because the people that are in power,
including the top Republicans, hate him.
[00:17:57]
And by the way, if you're wondering, like,
why give any grace to Matt Grace gates
and not Grace at all?
We're not.
We're just being honest with you guys.
These are our actual opinions.
And whether they're Republican
or Democrat, you should be principled
[00:18:14]
and have the same opinions.
And second of all, like I keep saying,
two things can be true at the same time.
And part of the reason
and along with being honest,
what he was a jerk in so many ways.
He's a terrible on the culture wars.
He was a jerk in terms of over
the top incivility in Congress.
[00:18:32]
You know me, I don't care about civility.
I don't even like civility.
But he burst into people's rooms
without permission.
ET cetera. All that stuff.
But really, if we're being honest,
there was another factor, which is
that he actually did try to prevent Trump
from bombing Iran in their first term.
[00:18:48]
That is real.
So you can say, oh,
I hate him on the other stuff, but hence I
hate him on trying to stop a war.
No, don't do that.
Be principled? That was a good thing.
He did actually propose a couple of bills
that were anti-corruption
that were genuine.
[00:19:03]
AOC signed on.
Ro Khanna signed on about both money
and politics and insider trading.
So, it's it's sucks that the the person
who did a sliver of good things on
the right also did these terrible things.
[00:19:20]
Both of those things
are true at the same time.
And lastly, on some of the minor things,
like they're like,
oh, he used a pseudonym from his
congressional office to buy marijuana.
Ooh, heaven forfend I mean,
here join button below.
Wrote in already a hilarious name.
He used marijuana.
[00:19:36]
We must alert the church elders, right?
So I don't care about that stuff.
And by the way, be part of the show.
Hit the join button below
in honor of the person with that name.
All right. And on obstruction that.
Oh, he tried to prevent
this investigation.
Of course he did.
[00:19:51]
Look, I don't believe that he did.
Illegal obstruction.
I think there's just whining
about their investigation.
And in the last one is, there's a saying
that he paid for some of the parts
of a trip to the Bahamas,
but that others paid for other parts.
[00:20:07]
And so that's a, you know, receiving
a gift that he shouldn't have received.
The devil's in the details there.
You know, if they were being honest
about what all the congresspeople
did along those lines, I would love it.
I would love that kind of accountability.
In this case, a lot of other guys
flew in on a private plane.
[00:20:24]
He flew in on a public plane,
but then he flew on a private plane out.
Right.
So it's like it's gray zone
around the edges.
They're throwing that in there
to try to show that he's corrupt when he
was actually calling out their corruption.
So I know that it's challenging
to do an honest news show
[00:20:40]
because then you make people angry
on the right or the left or both.
But that's that's the reality
as we see it, both for the better
and definitely for the worse.
For Matt Gaetz.
I think overall, the fallout from all
of this is going to be less political,
and we're really going
to see it play out in the media space.
[00:20:58]
There's already a lot of people
coming out defending Matt Gaetz or just
not even talking about it the way that,
you know, you might expect people who care
so much about these groomers to come out.
But you know, the hypocrisy.
It's they're in government the corruption.
It's they're in government. We know that.
[00:21:13]
We know that they a lot of our politicians
engage in a lot of the behaviors that they
don't let the rest of us engage in.
Right?
It's not for us,
but it is for them, right?
They can get away with it. We know that.
So I think that's where we're going
to see
a lot of the frustration with all of this.
But again, Matt Gaetz
is out of our government now.
[00:21:29]
Whether or not he I mean,
he can and should still get
prosecuted for statutory rape.
But I am doubtful
that we'll see that happen.
Thanks for watching the video, guys.
We also love it if you hit the join button
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[00:21:45]
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