Joel Leppard is the attorney for two women who testified before the House Ethics Committee about former Rep. Matt Gaetz’s conduct. Leppard said his clients told the committee that they were paid to have sex with Gaetz. One woman testified she witnessed Gaetz having sex with a… pic.twitter.com/t9tPUSS8Yo
— CBS News (@CBSNews) November 18, 2024
BREAKING: An attorney representing two women who testified before the House Ethics Committee says former Rep. Matt Gaetz paid both of his adult clients for sex.
Gaetz is President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for attorney general.https://t.co/tv4eWTjKSQ pic.twitter.com/ipvC7WKNmg
— ABC News Live (@ABCNewsLive) November 18, 2024
The Justice Department never went after people for hookers before, because if people start going after their political enemies for hookers, and if paying hookers is a nonstarter, the whole government is going to come crashing down.
But I guess those rules are off the table now and the Democrats are just hoping that this doesn’t come back on them.
Two women interviewed by the House Ethics Committee about former GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to be attorney general, testified that Gaetz paid them directly and repeatedly in Venmo transactions “for sex,” and that those transactions were obtained by the committee, an attorney for the women told CBS News. The attorney, Joel Leppard, also said the women testified that Gaetz inquired in text messages about “party favors” and “vitamins” at upcoming parties, which was understood to be code for drugs.
Leppard, who is based in Orlando, said his clients testified that they attended parties from 2017 to January 2019 where Gaetz was present and sex and drug use took place. In an interview Monday with CBS News chief Washington correspondent Major Garrett, Leppard said one of his clients testified before the House Ethics Committee that she witnessed Gaetz having sex with a 17-year-old girl against a game table at a July 2017 party. Gaetz was sworn into Congress in January 2017, so all of the events the women allege took place while he was a member of the House.
Officials with the Trump transition team did not respond to requests for comment Monday. One source familiar with Gaetz’s legal position questioned the credibility of the women and argued their recollections would not have withstood cross examination in court, had it come to that.
Gaetz, who has denied all wrongdoing, including having sex with a minor, has blasted the committee’s investigation against him and on Thursday called the testimony about him a “false smear.”
Gaetz’s conduct was also investigated by federal prosecutors, but they ended the probe in 2023 without filing charges.
That’s really the bottom line here. If they could have gotten him on something, they would have. They were really trying to. That really proves nothing happened.
That fat Irish slob Kavanagh, the SCOTUS judge, had never even been investigated for everything and they turned weird sex rumors into the entire confirmation hearing. Eventually, he was confirmed, presumably because most people in the government don’t want this sex stuff being at the core of the political discussion.
What is even the relevance of this sex material? People will say “it speaks to character,” but do people with good character not have sex? Is this a Puritan society?
As the House Ethics Committee weighs whether to release its report, which investigated allegations that Gaetz engaged in sexual misconduct, illicit drug use and bribery, Leppard said his clients want the public to know they are telling the truth.
One of his clients said in a text to Leppard, “‘Regardless of how many times he tries to distract from the truth, the public deserves to know that what we all experienced was real and actually happened.'”
Why does the public deserve to know about this guy’s sex life?
What is the rationale here?
Do we live in an ultra-Puritan nation, or a country that literally celebrates gay orgies and promotes child homosexuality?
Who is kidding who here?
“My clients are not political; they didn’t vote in the last two elections — they don’t care one way or another,” Leppard told Garrett. “But they do want the public to know that they are not lying. They did not come forward willingly — they have never spoken to anyone without a force of a legal subpoena.”
He continued, “And if the American people would know, then they could decide if that’s the person they want to be the next attorney general.”
Personally, I would support all politicians being either incels or celibate monks.
I’m pretty sure that’s not the country we’re living in.
One of Leppard’s clients is among at least four women who have told the committee they were paid to attend parties with drugs and sex where Gaetz was present, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter. Her account corroborates the testimony of the then-minor, who told the committee that she had sex with Gaetz when she was 17 years old.
At the July 2017 party where his client alleges this occurred, Leppard said she and others were “at the party in order to provide entertainment, to be happy, to be lively and provide sexual favors for the gentlemen that were present.”
“The expectation was that they would have sexual intercourse,” Leppard said his clients testified about these parties. “They testified to the House that — and the House actually had their Venmo transactions, PayPal transactions, of Representative Gaetz.”
This could all be made up. My thinking is that he did have sex with some women at parties, but none of them were “underage.” It seems likely there are Venmo transactions. That is something they couldn’t just lie about if they actually want the information to come out. But the fact that charges were never pressed means the girls were all over 18, which makes this all meaningless, and just a Puritan witch hunt, which again, does not make sense in the most degenerate society ever in history.
“The mothers at tranny story time were outraged to learn Gaetz had sex with women.”
This is ridiculous.
Navarro: Bill Clinton had two AG nominees who had to withdraw because they had employed illegal nannies. Matt Gaetz is accused of sleeping with a girl who’s almost young enough to need a nanny pic.twitter.com/XADsEgsVBQ
— Acyn (@Acyn) November 19, 2024
Elvis Dunderhoff contributed to this article.