Matt Gaetz’s accusers don’t want to testify in public, their lawyer says
Attorney Joel Leppard told NBC News that his two clients want their private testimony before the House Ethics Committee to be released but don’t want to speak publicly.
WASHINGTON — A lawyer for two women who have accused former Rep. Matt Gaetz of paying them for sex said in an interview with NBC News that his clients do not want to testify publicly after providing closed-door testimony to the House Ethics Committee this year.
The two women previously told the House Ethics Committee that Gaetz paid them for sex multiple times and that one of them witnessed him having sex with a friend who was 17 years old at the time, Orlando-based attorney Joel Leppard told NBC News in an interview Monday. His clients now “hope to put pressure on the House to release the contents of the investigation” and avoid having to publicly rehash the same allegations, Leppard said.
“That would be, basically, a worst-case situation for them, is to be forced to out themselves in public,” he added.
Last week, President-elect Donald Trump announced Gaetz, a conservative rabble rouser during his nearly eight years in the House, as his pick for attorney general. Gaetz officially resigned from office after Trump’s announcement, leaving it uncertain whether the House Ethics Committee that had investigated him over the last three years will release its final report. (The committee only has jurisdiction over sitting members of Congress.)
Leppard said his clients only spoke to the Ethics Committee after receiving a subpoena and would only testify in public “with a valid legal subpoena that requires them to speak.”
“They’ve been through so much, and the toll that this investigation has taken, in some ways, is more serious than what’s happened before that. So, this investigation has reopened old wounds,” he said.
“They don’t have an agenda. My clients are not politically motivated. They haven’t voted in the last two elections,” Leppard added.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin, D-Ill., told reporters Monday that he’s not ruling out calling the Gaetz accusers to testify during a confirmation hearing for attorney general. But he said he would prefer to get that information either through the House Ethics Committee report or from the Justice Department.
“I wouldn’t rule it out,” Durbin said about calling the women to testify before the Judiciary Commitee.
But, he added, that getting a copy of the House Ethics Committee report would be “the right starting point, politically balanced and complete. Maybe the Department of Justice’s own investigation at some point could be referred to. Before I consider any subpoenas, I want to go to those two sources.”
Durbin will be in the minority when the Judiciary Committee holds a future Gaetz confirmation hearing, so his power will be dramatically reduced starting Jan. 3. But the minority typically gets to also choose witnesses who will speak to the character and work a nominee has done, and Democrats possibly could call the women who made allegations against Gaetz and spoke to the House Ethics Committee.
The House Ethics Committee, led by Chairman Michael Guest, R-Miss., and Rep. Susan Wild, D-Pa., is expected to meet Wednesday to discuss whether to release its report on its sweeping, yearslong investigation into allegations that Gaetz engaged in sexual misconduct and illicit drug use, accepted improper gifts, gave special favors to people with whom he had a personal relationship, and obstructed the investigation.
Gaetz has denied all the allegations and declined Monday to respond to detailed questions from NBC regarding Leppard’s interview. The Trump transition team called the allegations against Gaetz “baseless,” noting that the Justice Department had spent years investigating him over allegations of sex trafficking a 17-year-old girl but that it informed Gaetz in February 2023 that it was closing its probe without charging him. The Justice Department has declined to comment on why it decided not to charge Gaetz.
Wild and other Democrats on the House Ethics Committee want the report released to the public — or at least sent to Senate Judiciary members for their review. But Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., a Trump ally, is “strongly” urging the House committee not to release the report even as he insists that he has not interfered in the committee’s independence.
“I have not dictated anything to the Ethics Committee. It is not my place to do so. I’ve been very clear,” Johnson told reporters. “I’m merely responding to the questions that every single media outlet in America is asking me: Do I think a report, if it exists, should be released? And the answer is no.”
Leppard said one of his clients testified before the Ethics Committee in April that she personally witnessed Gaetz have sex with her minor friend at a house party in Orlando in 2017. Leppard’s client testified that she did not think Gaetz knew the girl was a minor and that she believes he “stopped their sexual relationship” when he learned the girl’s age until after she was 18, the lawyer said.
Another Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, said if the two women do not want to testify before the Judiciary Committee, he would not support forcing them to testify, expressing concern that it might “victimize them again.”
“I would avoid use of the subpoena if they are resistant,” Blumenthal told NBC News.
Leppard said his clients’ goal is just to get the House to release its report. “If that report is released … the results of the 25 subpoenas, the thousands of documents that were provided to the House, then their job is done, and the American people can decide if Rep. Gaetz is the best choice to be the top law enforcement official in the country,” he said.
A number of Republican senators have expressed doubts that Gaetz could get confirmed by the Senate. But Trump has made it clear that he is serious about installing Gaetz as his top law enforcement official and Vice President-elect JD Vance will be on Capitol Hill this week arranging meetings between Republican senators and Gaetz, as well as other expected Cabinet nominees.
Trump personally called Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., and urged him to get behind Gaetz, Cramer confirmed to NBC News on Tuesday. But the senator said he has not yet decided how he’ll vote on the nomination.
Trump “is always persuasive and has earned the capital from the voters,” Cramer said, but added: “I remain skeptical but open as the process moves.”
–