CNN’s Polantz: Ethics Cmte. Says Gaetz ‘Implicated Federal Criminal Laws of False Statements and Obstruction for Congress’

RUSH TRANSCRIPT:
Sex, drugs and a minor. A bombshell report released by the house ethics committee. Reams of evidence released, including text messages that reveal the first for the first time, the full scope of former congressman Matt Gaetz‘s sex scandal. According to the report put out just this morning, Gaetz, who was Trump‘s nominee for attorney general before stepping aside, allegedly paid multiple women for sex, including a 17 year old, while he was a sitting member of Congress and also did illegal drugs while in office. Well, tonight, a slew of text messages that suggest Gaetz wasn‘t always so willing to pay up. There‘s a lot here. Here‘s one exchange. A woman writing. So I‘m not going to be taking care of this. I‘m not going to be taking care of for. Last week, Gaetz allegedly responds, I gave you 250 today. I figured redacted would pay for your uber. Last week you gave me a drive by. In another exchange between women who say they met with Gaetz, a woman starts complaining in a message this quote, Matt never paid me. How much did he pay you? The other woman responds wtf? He gave me 400 and Gaetz then girlfriend also messaging with some of the women who were typically paid for sex. According to this report. Quote, the guy‘s representative Gaetz and Mr. Greenberg, his associate, wanted me to share that they are a little limited in their cash flow. This weekend, Matt was like, if it can be more of a customer appreciation week. Dot dot dot. Now again, this is all said to have taken place while Matt Gaetz was a sitting member of Congress, the house ethics committee, concluding it, found substantial evidence that, quote, in 2017, representative Gaetz engaged in sexual activity with a 17 year old girl. It goes on to say that during the period 2017 to 2019, representative Gaetz used or possessed illegal drugs, including cocaine and ecstasy, on multiple occasions. We‘ll note that Gaetz has never been charged and he denies all the allegations, and the committee found that the 17 year old did not tell Gaetz she was a minor, nor did Gaetz ask her age. With all of this coming out, Matt Gaetz tried today to block the report from being released, unsuccessfully filing a lawsuit this morning and acknowledging this evening that the point is moot since the report is now out. Tonight, Gaetz is responding, though, posting online in part this. There is a reason they did this to me in a Christmas Eve eve report and not in a courtroom of any kind where I could present evidence and challenge witnesses. Katelyn Polantz is out front, live in Washington all over. As this was released this morning. Caitlin, there‘s a lot of detailed evidence in this report. What more are you learning, Kate.
>> Not just detailed evidence. What the committee says is substantial evidence that backs up what they believe are violations of the ethics of Congress, of the ethics of the conduct of somebody who would be a sitting representative. And it is a laundry list that the committee puts right at the top of their report, saying that they believe that some of this conduct included engaging in prostitution, statutory rape, illicit drug use, impermissible gifts, and then obstruction of Congress. The committee goes on not just to show their work, showing 11 pages of ledgers of payments that they were able to track down. Also, text messages, as you were mentioning, but they highlight what women told them in testimony. Women coming in to speak to the committee, including that woman who was 17 at the time she was having sex with Gaetz, she testified. And they say that many of the women interviewed by the committee, they knew that there was a clear expectation, a general expectation for sex. One of the women who spoke to the committee said she was paid more than $5,000 by Gaetz in two years while he was sitting in Congress. So the committee is putting this all together and saying he may not have been charged with a federal crime. He may not have evidence. There is no evidence that we‘re seeing of federal sex trafficking violations, but there surely is something to be seen here. Some violations of ethics. For someone who was a sitting member of Congress and still a prominent voice in the conservative movement behind Donald Trump, and as I was mentioning, Caitlin Gaetz tried to put up a fight this morning.
>> There was like a flurry of activity of him trying to fight the release of this as it was being leaked out. And then what?
>> Well, the committee says that it‘s possible he implicated federal criminal laws of false statements and obstruction for Congress. They believe that they were obstructing, that he was obstructing them. It might not be a criminal violation, they say, but over the course of this 19 month investigation that the committee was doing that culminated in the release of this report today, that he was deflecting, deterring, misleading them, essentially just not responding to the request, trying to push them off, saying they‘re too burdensome and barely giving them any information as they were seeking it. Kate.