Katie Hill Pens Op-Ed on ‘Unlikely’ Friend Gaetz, Says He Should Resign ‘Immediately’ If Reports True

Former Rep. Katie Hill (D-CA) spoke out on allegations involving Rep. Matt Gaetz, the Florida Republican who defended Hill amid her own scandal in 2019, to say in a Monday op-ed that Gaetz should resign “immediately” if the allegations are true.

Hill, who served with Gaetz on the House Armed Services Committee, recalled the days leading to her resignation in 2019, after explicit photos of Hill and news of her affair with a campaign staffer were leaked to the media, writing in a column for Vanity Fair, “I was a wreck. I held it together … barely, but spent a lot of time in a room off to the side that served as a break room where members could rest, eat, or talk to each other away from the C-SPAN cameras as the night dragged on.

“Matt must have noticed something because he asked me what was wrong, [and] I told him about the divorce, though not what might be coming because of it — not even I knew then that, somewhere, a trove of photos of my naked body existed,” Hill wrote.

She noted that Gaetz defended her, but that she was nonetheless “horrified” by his political views. She also suggested that she no longer considered him a friend:

Meanwhile, Republicans were having a field day. Then, suddenly, the golden boy of Fox spoke up for me. Matt was the first member of Congress who publicly and unapologetically defended me, saying that while I might have made mistakes, I was a victim in this circumstance. At one of the darkest moments of my life, when I was feeling more alone than I ever had, Matt stood up for me — and that really mattered.

Matt and I corresponded a bit throughout 2020. I was horrified by his ongoing support of Trump and I told him so. We also talked about writing our books, which came out around the same time, and about the election.

…

Once Trump lost and Matt started perpetuating Trump’s dangerous lies about the election results, our occasional texts stopped altogether. When Matt doubled down after the January 6 insurrection, I questioned how I could have ever considered us friends. But in difficult times, sometimes the unlikeliest people support you.

In closing, Hill said Gaetz should resign “immediately” if the allegations were true — and said her mother didn’t like him:

Let me state it as clearly as possible: If, despite his denials, Matt Gaetz did have sex with a minor, if he did provide girls and young women with drugs and money and gifts in exchange for sex, if he did ask these girls and young women to recruit other women for the same purpose, and if he did show his colleagues images of nude women without their consent, he needs to be held responsible. Some of these actions are criminal and some of them should be. All are morally reprehensible and unacceptable for a lawmaker.

If there is even a fraction of truth to these reports, he should resign immediately.

When the news about Matt Gaetz broke, my mom once again called to ask if I was okay. She knew about our friendship and didn’t like it. From the very beginning she’d told me to be careful and not to trust him. When he defended me, she raised her eyebrows and told me I’d better not sleep with him (I did not, for the record).

“Yeah, I’m okay,” I replied. “I just don’t really know what to say. I really hope it’s not true.”

“I’m sure it’s true.”

“Jeez, Mom, why??”

“Because it’s always true. Hopefully this time a man actually takes the fall.”

We’ll see.

News broke last week that the Justice Department was investigating Gaetz, 38, for an alleged relationship with a 17-year-old girl approximately two years ago. Gaetz has denied the allegations.

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