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You can beat the heat if you beat the charges tooThey said I was a cheat, I guess it must be true…I need to forget, so take me to FloridaI’ve got some regrets, I’ll bury them in FloridaTell me I’m despicable, say it’s unforgivableWhat a crash, what a rush, f— me up, FloridaIt’s one hell of a drugIt’s one hell of a drug– Taylor Swift, “Florida!!!“

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) may indeed have some regrets he’d like to bury in Florida as the House Ethics Committee investigation into him seems to be heating up. On Friday, ABC News reported a woman provided a sworn statement to the committee saying she attended a 2017 party Gaetz also attended where illegal drugs were present — as well as a naked underage girl.

Allegations that Gaetz had sex with a then-17-year-old girl have been swirling around the congressman since the downfall of his former “wingman,” Joel Greenberg, the former Seminole

County Tax Collector. That’s an elected position in each of Florida’s 67 counties that normally gets very little attention, handling such mundane bureaucratic tasks as renewing driver’s licenses and license plates. But Greenberg found his name in national headlines because of a truly bonkers scheme in which he falsely accused Brian Beute, a local teacher and one of his 2020 primary opponents, of sexually assaulting a male student.

When Greenberg’s fingerprints and DNA were found on the false letters he mailed to Beute’s school, it sparked a federal investigation that exposed even more Greenberg schemes — including allegations that Greenberg had paid women for sex, some who were underage.

Greenberg pled guilty in 2021 to 6 criminal charges in a stunning 86-page plea agreement in which he admitted to paying for sex with an underage girl, giving her illegal drugs, and also “introduc[ing] the Minor to other adult men, who engaged in commercial sex acts” with her.

The identity of the other “adult men” involved has been the subject of much speculation, with many political observers openly wondering about Gaetz’s involvement — especially since security camera footage reportedly caught Gaetz accompanying Greenberg on a late-night weekend trip to the tax collector’s office in the area where Greenberg was allegedly stealing surrendered driver’s licenses to make fake IDs.

Gaetz has vociferously denied all allegations that he had sex with anyone underage or committed any

other crimes connected to Greenberg, but the two were close friends before his arrest, and Greenberg allegedly wrote a confession letter to none other than Roger Stone (seeking Stone’s help obtaining a pardon from then-President Donald Trump) claiming he and Gaetz did in fact pay an underage woman for sex. In January, Gaetz reportedly told his congressional colleagues he ousted Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) from the Speakership because McCarthy wouldn’t kill off the House Ethics investigation into this scandal, and a past ABC News report included text messages that Gaetz allegedly sent to a young woman (who was over 21 at the time) who Greenberg had paid for sex, to invite her on a private plane trip to the Florida Keys.

In the latest ABC News report, a witness provided a sworn written statement saying that in the summer of 2017 when she was 20 years old, she attended a party in Florida where Gaetz was also present. According to ABC News, “sources familiar with the committee’s work” said that this woman included in her statement allegations that the party “featured alcohol and drugs including cocaine and MDMA.”

The woman’s statement also included allegations that, “in addition to Gaetz, the party was attended by the then-minor who was at the center of a yearslong Justice Department investigation into accusations that the Florida Congressman had sex with her when she was 17, according to sources.”

Perhaps most

salacious of the accusations is that the woman also “said she saw the then-minor naked at the party, which was also attended by adult men other than Gaetz, and that at the party there allegedly were bedrooms that were made available for sexual activities.”

Gaetz previously served in the Florida House of Representatives before running for Congress in 2016 after Rep. Jeff Miller (R-FL) announced he was retiring. After winning the primary, Gaetz easily won the general election in the heavily-Republican district and was sworn into office in Jan. 2017 — meaning that if this woman’s allegations are true, he attended this party while he was a member of Congress.

Gaetz denied these new allegations through a spokesperson, who was asked by ABC News if the congressman remembered attending the 2017 party or if he had used illegal drugs since becoming a member of Congress, with the spokesperson answering “no” to both questions.

Tags: Florida, house ethics committee, Matt Gaetz