Joel Leppard, an attorney representing multiple women making accusations of sexual misconduct against Matt Gaetz, President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to be attorney general, told ABC News on Monday that two of his clients say Gaetz paid them for sex.
In an interview, Leppard was asked by Juju Chang if “both of your clients testified that they were paid by Representative Gaetz to have sex?” during an appearance before the House Ethics Committee.
“That’s correct. The House was very clear about that and went through each. They essentially put the Venmo payments on the screen and asked about them. And my clients repeatedly testified, ‘What was this payment for?’ ‘That was for sex,'” replied Leppard.
Leppard had previously said that one of his clients had also watched Gaetz have sex with a minor.
John Clune, another attorney representing a woman who says that Gaetz had sex with his client while she was still a minor and “high school student,” called Gaetz’s nomination last week “a perverse development.”
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Gaetz has long been under investigation by the Ethics Committee and earlier this year, it announced it was still “reviewing allegations pursuant to Committee Rules 14(a)(3) and 18(a) that Representative Gaetz may have: engaged in sexual misconduct and 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.”
After Gaetz was named as Trump’s nominee to be attorney general last week, Gaetz promptly resigned from his seat in the House of Representatives, thus depriving the Ethics Committee of jurisdiction over his case.
It is unclear whether the report, which may have been made public in short order prior to Gaetz’s resignation, will be officially released or leaked in the coming days.