Matt Gaetz, Trump’s nominee for attorney general, has been the subject of a sex trafficking investigation

Matt Gaetz, Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Justice Department, was previously investigated over allegations of sex trafficking of a 17-year-old girl – a federal investigation that ultimately led to no criminal charges.

Gaetz – a House member from Florida who was one of Trump’s most loyal foot soldiers on Capitol Hill – has long denied the allegations and was told on February 15, 2023 that the Justice Department would end its investigation without charging him.

“We have just spoken with the Department of Justice and have been informed that they have completed their investigation into Congressman Gaetz and the allegations related to sex trafficking and obstruction of justice and have decided not to file charges against him,” Gaetz’s attorneys said at the time .

Before he left Congress after becoming Trump’s nominee for attorney general on Wednesday, Gaetz remained under investigation by the bipartisan House Ethics Committee, which is investigating whether he had committed sexual misconduct and illegal drug use.

NBC News reported in 2021 that federal investigators were looking into Gaetz’s trip with women to the Bahamas and, in particular, whether those women were paid to travel for sex, which could violate federal law, a law enforcement official and another person familiar with the matter said.

At the time of reporting, a Gaetz spokesman said: “Rep. Gaetz never paid for sex, nor did he have sex with an underage girl. What began with loud headlines about sex trafficking has now evolved into a general angling exercise about vacations and consensual adult relationships.”

According to law enforcement sources, the investigation stemmed from an investigation into Joel Micah Greenberg, a former friend of Gaetz and a former tax commissioner in Seminole County, Florida. Greenberg pleaded guilty to several crimes in May 2021, including sex trafficking of a 17-year-old girl.

Federal prosecutors also investigated in the summer of 2021 whether Gaetz may have obstructed justice during a telephone conversation with a witness in a possible sex crimes investigation, a law enforcement source said.

The obstruction investigation, which arose from an investigation into whether Gaetz had an inappropriate relationship with a minor, was first reported by Politico, which cited two sources familiar with the case.

A spokesman for Gaetz who has not been accused of any crime in that investigation and has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing, which was ridiculed at the time of news of the obstruction investigation.

“Congressman Gaetz seeks justice, he does not obstruct it,” the spokesman said in a written statement.

“After two months, there is still not a single allegation of misconduct on record, and now the ‘story’ is changing again.”

Also in the summer of 2021, the FBI investigated and the Justice Department secured the guilty plea of ​​a man involved in a conspiracy to extort Gaetz’s father, Don Gaetz, for $25 million.

Stephen Alford, 62, of Fort Walton Beach, Florida, said he could help Matt Gaetz secure a presidential pardon, authorities said.

Alford said he could help free former FBI agent Robert Levinson from Iran from Don Gaetz for $25 million and secure Matt in return. Gaetz’s pardon by the Biden administration on the grounds that he had access to President Joe Biden.

Matt Gaetz said the allegations stemmed from the extortion scheme.

Gaetz told the House Ethics Committee in September that he had stopped working with the panel, which he said had asked him for a list of adult sexual partners from the past seven years.

In a letter to the committee and later to reporters, Gaetz called the investigation “not a matter for Congress.”

“They’re just curious, and it’s none of their business,” Gaetz told NBC News in late September.