Silence from GOP as experts demand answers amid latest Gaetz s​ex scandal allegations

U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz has not issued any public response to overnight bombshell reporting citing sworn court testimony alleging the Florida Republican lawmaker in 2017 attended a “drug-fueled sex party” that had at least one underaged minor present. Nor has any Republican in the House or Senate called for his resignation.

The damning report from NOTUS‘s investigative reporter Jose Pagliery reveals prosecutors have “geolocated cell phone records” that show the owner of the Florida home where the party was held “communicated constantly with the congressman that day.”

“The defense’s court filings show a hired digital forensic examiner identified Gaetz’s number, which has a Florida panhandle 850 area code and texted back and forth 30 times that day and then called Dorworth twice in the hours before the evening revelry.”

“The minor, who was a junior in high school at the time, arrived in her mother’s car for a July 15, 2017, party at the Florida home of Chris Dorworth, a lobbyist and friend of Gaetz’s, according to a court filing written by defense attorneys who interviewed witnesses as part of an ongoing civil lawsuit Dorworth brought in 2023,” NOTUS reports.

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Democratic strategist and pollster Matt McDermott remarked, “Last night we learned that Rep. Matt Gaetz was at a drug-fueled sex party in the summer of 2017 with a 17-year-old high school junior. As of this morning, not a single national Republican has called for his resignation.”

Gaetz is not in hiding — he has been tweeting from his personal account Friday morning, casually promoting what he calls “the transformation happening in El Salvador,” and attacking a fellow Republican, the junior U.S. Senator from Oklahoma, for an alleged stock purchase.

“This should be illegal,” Gaetz wrote.

Meanwhile, experts are demanding answers from the U.S. Dept. of Justice, which closed the books on its investigation into Gaetz.

“We really need to know why the DOJ decided not to criminally charge Matt Gaetz despite reports suggesting an abundance of evidence that he likely violated sex-trafficking laws,” wrote Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Government (CREW). “We’re suing for records.”

Former Lincoln Project executive director Fred Wellman asked, “I want to know why this useless DOJ isn’t pursuing crimes against Gaetz? Why does Garland consistently give Republicans a pass?”

Olga Lautman, a non-resident Senior Fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) and researcher of organized crime and intelligence operations in Russia and Ukraine demanded to know: “Why was the Gaetz investigation dropped?”

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That question floats amid another damning report. Congressman Gaetz reportedly had asked then-President Donald Trump for a pardon related to the DOJ’s investigation.

“An aide to former President Donald Trump testified to the House Select Committee investigating January 6 that GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida sought a preemptive presidential pardon relating to a Justice Department investigation examining whether Gaetz violated federal sex trafficking laws,” CNN reported in September of 2022, citing “a source familiar with the aide’s testimony.”

Also dropped was the first of two investigations into Gaetz’s behavior, including allegations that while on the House floor, he repeatedly showed fellow members of Congress photos and videos of nude women he said he had had sex with, CNN reported in 2021.

The Ethics Committee re-opened its investigation into Gaetz last year, and currently is looking into, as Vanity Fair reported in June, “allegations that the Florida congressman ‘engaged in…illicit drug use, accepted improper gifts, dispensed special privileges and favors to individuals with whom he had a personal relationship, and sought to obstruct government investigations of his conduct.’”