WASHINGTON (KNX) — Sources familiar with a Department of Justice probe investigating sex trafficking allegations against U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) said that the lawmaker sought “a preemptive pardon from President Donald Trump,” according to a Saturday report in The Washington Post.
News of the probe was first published in The New York Times last year.
At that time, the outlet reported that Gaetz was “being investigated by the Justice Department over whether he had a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old and paid for her to travel with him, according to three people briefed on the matter.” The Post said that the investigation was opened during the final months of Trump’s presidency.
Late last month, the Daily Beast reported that eight people familiar with the matter confirmed that the case was ongoing. Just prior to the report, Gaetz won his Republican primary and he is expected to appear on midterm election ballots in November.
Allegations against Gaetz stem from an investigation against his former political ally, a local Florida tax official named Joel Greenberg. Per The New York Times, Greenberg was indicted on charges including sex trafficking of a child and financially supporting people in exchange for sex.
He is now a convicted sex trafficker, said The Washington Post.
Gaetz, 40, is an attorney who began his political career a little over a decade ago. He is the son of Republican politician Don Gaetz and married Ginger Luckey last year. In 2020, Gaetz revealed that he has an adopted son named Nestor who emigrated to the U.S. from Cuba when he was 12. Nestor is now 21, according to Gaetz.
According to The Washington Post, Gaetz “told a former White House aide that he was seeking a preemptive pardon from President Donald Trump regarding an investigation in which he is a target,” in testimony given to the House select committee investigating the Capitol riot.
Former political aide Johnny McEntee told investigators that Gaetz told him during a brief meeting that unnamed entities were going to or already were investigating him, according to the anonymous sources cited by The Post.
They said McEntee remembers that Gaetz claimed “he did not do anything wrong but they are trying to make his life hell,” and asked if then-President Trump could give him a pardon. McEntee also said he believed that the investigation in question was the Justice Department probe into sex trafficking allegations and that he could not remember if it happened before or after the Jan. 6 insurrection last year.
“The testimony is the first indication that Gaetz was specifically seeking a pardon for his own exposure related to the Justice Department inquiry into whether he violated sex trafficking laws,” said The Post Saturday.
“McEntee did not respond to repeated requests for comment. Neither [former White House Chief of Staff Mark] Meadows nor his lawyer immediately responded to requests for comment,” said the outlet. “A spokesperson for Gaetz declined to address the testimony or whether Gaetz discussed a pardon with McEntee or Meadows and instead responded that Gaetz never directly asked Trump for a pardon.”
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