We Need to Talk About Matt Gaetz’s Insane Texts

On Monday, the House Ethics Committee dropped its 42-page report accusing Gaetz of “statutory rape” and “illicit drug use." Screenshots of his incredibly bizarre texts are a crime of their own.

By Kylie Cheung  |  December 24, 2024 | 10:50am
Photo: Getty Images Politics
We Need to Talk About Matt Gaetz’s Insane Texts

On Monday, the House Ethics Committee finally dropped its highly anticipated report detailing the misconduct allegations perpetrated by former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.). The report concludes that “there is substantial evidence that 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.” To supplement the report, the committee shared a bevy of screenshots of text communications between Gaetz and the young, college-age women he and his associate Joel Greenberg allegedly paid for sex and companionship, and… I hope you’re ready for some second-hand embarrassment!

The different appendixes attached to the report feature extensive evidence of Gaetz flying women across state lines, arranging hotel visits, seeking illicit drugs, and generally being a creep. The evidence also includes text messages between the women about Gaetz and Greenberg not paying them sufficiently, not paying them at all, or detailing the women’s reluctance to use drugs. The committee’s report notes that “at least one woman felt that the use of drugs at the parties and events they attended may have ‘impair(ed their) ability to really know what was going on or fully consent.’” The report continued, “One woman said, ‘I think about it all the time … . I still see him when I turn on the tv and there’s nothing anyone can do. It’s frustrating to know I lived a reality that he denies.’”

That being said, even for someone as famously shameless as Gaetz, it’s pretty hard to believe what he’s trying to deny in the face of such an inescapable trail of his own making. Lest you lack the time to pore through dozens of pages of evidence, I’ve compiled the most—in my opinion—criminal revelations.

Flying his “girls” via Spirit Airlines

Sure, the committee determined that Gaetz may not have violated federal trafficking laws, but I’d argue he violated the Geneva Convention by making his “girls” fly via Spirit Airlines from Orlando to New York City and back. And, might I add, any adult man who addresses a group of women as “girls” should have the self-awareness to clock that he is doing something bad and wrong.

The world’s most bizarre selfies

As Greenberg talks business with a young woman from Seeking Arrangements and implores her to bring her friends along, he attempts to sweeten the deal by showing a photo of his friend Matt Gaetz. Except, he’s a horrible wingman because it’s a god-awful pic of Gaetz appearing to take a selfie with another individual who’s been redacted from Congressional record. I wish Gaetz’s face had been redacted, too.

In an act of unfathomable charity, the young woman responds to Greenberg, “Oooh, my friend thinks he’s really cute!”

Seriously, what is this???

So excited to see you soon!!! [takes a selfie at the office that highlights my dead fish eyes and my borderline sociopathic inability to smile] omg she’ll love it

[image or embed]

— Jay Willis (@jaywillis.net) December 23, 2024 at 10:01 AM

Here’s another inexplicable, terrible selfie Gaetz sent in a group chat of him and the young women he’s solicited. This time, Gaetz appears to be at Union Station in New York City, where he and Greenberg have flown out the women, apparently to watch Gaetz appear on a cable news interview, then catch some Broadway shows and hit up a music lounge, the texts suggest. Sounds fun—if only Gaetz weren’t tagging along.

Gaetz appears to have had trouble paying the women

In a series of screenshots with names redacted, the women discussed not receiving the money they were promised from Gaetz and Greenberg, or not receiving the amounts they were promised.

In one screenshotted text exchange, one of the women says she “[hates] the $ situation and drugs,” while another woman replies, “I don’t wanna roll.”

And, in one of the text exchanges, Gaetz’s then-girlfriend, who frequently facilitated and sometimes participated in his encounters with the women, told them money was tight… and that Gaetz suggested the women perform free sex work for “customer appreciation week.” Excuse me while I vomit in my mouth!

Despite his best efforts to impress college-age women, Gaetz struggled to locate drugs

There is a lot about this situation that is predatory and exploitative. There’s also a lot that’s downright embarrassing. Gaetz, a man in his thirties who sought the companionship and flattery of economically vulnerable 20-year-olds, appears to have frequently needed the women to find or supply him with drugs, apparently unable to perform a task that most 16-year-olds at my high school very easily could.

Here, Gaetz asks the young women “who can help w party favors?”

Here, Gaetz appears to ask one of the young women to send him cartridges presumably for his weed pen.

“Got cartridges?” he writes to a 20 to 22-year-old woman once she says she’s available that day.

I cannot emphasize enough that this is a thirty-something man—who Donald Trump briefly nominated to run the Department of Justice.

In 2021, the DOJ opened an investigation into allegations that Gaetz trafficked and had a sexual encounter with a 17-year-old girl in 2017. The investigation closed in 2023 without explanation and Gaetz faced no charges. But the House Ethics Committee launched its own investigation that same year, and… these are its findings!

The report alleges that Gaetz “made tens of thousands of dollars in payments to women that the Committee determined were likely in connection with sexual activity and/or drug use,” listing payments that total over $90,000 to 12 different women. In addition to the report’s extensive findings about Gaetz’s relationships with young women he paid for sex from 2017 to 2019, it also features details about the 17-year-old girl Gaetz allegedly, statutorily raped in 2017, identified as “Victim A.” Gaetz allegedly had two encounters with Victim A when she was a minor and junior in high school.

Gaetz has denied the findings of the report. On Monday he filed a lawsuit in federal court to block the report’s release. Last week, he attempted to get ahead of the report, conceding that “my 30’s were an era of working very hard—and playing hard too.” Who, in their thirties, hasn’t been accused of statutory rape and paying 12 young women $90,000???

Should you have the stomach for it, you can find the full report and its detailed appendixes on the House Ethics Committee’s website. Much of it is, again, incredibly upsetting. And, I can’t lie to you: Some of it—specifically, Gaetz’s stupidity and childish cadence of texting—is undeniably quite funny.

 
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