The House of Representatives investigation into Matt Gaetz was considered closed when he resigned his seat to accept Donald Trump’s nomination for Attorney General.
But the firebrand loyalist has been dogged by allegations that he had sex with a 17-year-old girl, attended drug-fuelled parties with escorts and showed videos of his “conquests” to Congress colleagues ever since Mr Trump made the announcement.
The former former Florida representative now faces further turmoil as a House ethics Investigation into the claims threatens to become public amid fierce rumours that it could be leaked.
The House Ethics Committee opened the probe into the Florida Panhandle Republican over the alleged use of illicit drugs and sexual relations with a 17-year-old in 2021, with a vote on its release set to take place before Mr Gaetz resigned earlier this week.
Mr Gaetz denied claims he slept with the 17-year-old. He has never been charged.
Now that he is no longer a House Representative, the committee no longer has jurisdiction to investigate him and the report won’t be released.
It had already been delayed owing to rules which prohibit a negative report being released close to an election, according to the New York Times.
The House investigation came after a federal public corruption investigation was opened into Orlando-based tax collector Joel Greenberg, a close associate of Mr Gaetz.
During their inquiries, the investigators gained access to Mr Greenberg’s electronic devices, discovering that he had repeatedly paid a young woman he had met online to attend parties with him and his friends, according to the New York Times.
When it emerged that the woman was under 18 years of age, the tax collector agreed to cooperate with federal authorities to avoid a potentially lengthy jail sentence if convicted for for having sex with a minor.
Greenberg was sentenced to 11 years in prison after pleading guilty to underage sex trafficking, wire fraud, stalking, identity theft, producing a fake ID card, and conspiring to defraud the US government.
Mr Greenberg went on to claim that Mr Gaetz had also had sex with the woman – who was 17 years old at the time – and knew she was being paid, the New York Times reported.
The Department of Justice, which Mr Gaetz would lead as Attorney General, opened a two-year investigation into him.
Last year, the DoJ ended the investigation without charge.
The Ethics Committee, which had paused its work to give room to federal investigators, restarted its own probe into Mr Gaetz.
Here is everything we know about what the committee is looking into.
What is the House Ethics Committee investigating?
The House’s initial investigation was opened in 2021, but didn’t get to work seriously until the federal probe was closed in 2023.
Over the past year-and-a-half, the Ethics Committee has looked into a series of allegations made against Mr Gaetz, including that he showed nude pictures of women to other members of the House, took illegal drugs, had sex with a 17 year old and misused campaign funds for personal use.
The panel interviewed a number of the women who Mr Greenberg told federal investigators Mr Gaetz had allegedly had sex with, including the unnamed 17-year-old.
It also subpoenaed Mr Greenberg to hand over documents he had related to Mr Gaetz.
What happens next?
After his resignation, lawmakers from both the Democrats and Republicans called for the House Ethics Committee’s unreleased report into Mr Gaetz to be made public.
A lawyer representing the alleged 17-year-old victim also voiced support for its release.
Senator John Cornyn, a Republican, said the Senate should be given access to the report before it is made to vote on Mr Gaetz’s confirmation as Attorney General.
“I don’t want there to be any limitation at all on what the Senate could consider,” he told reporters.
When asked if that means he wants to see the ethics report, he replied: “Absolutely.”
The lawyer for the alleged victim, John Clune, said: “Mr Gaetz’s likely nomination as attorney general is a perverse development in a truly dark series of events.
“We would support the House Ethics Committee immediately releasing their report. The 17-year-old was a high school student and there were witnesses.”
The Washington Post reported that the House committee may release the report into Mr Gaetz as early as Friday.
The alleged encounter
According to testimony as given to the ethics committee from Mr Greenberg’s ex-wife, Mr Gaetz is said to have attended a drugs-fuelled party hosted by Chris Dorworth, a former Republican member of Florida’s House of Representatives in summer 2017.
Mr Dorworth has denied that he attended the party at his home, claiming he was instead celebrating a friend’s birthday part “on a lake far away,” according to The Orlando Sentinel.
Sex workers were said to have roamed the Heathrow, Florida, home with “access to the bedrooms in the Dorworth residence to engage in sexual activities, as well as alcohol, cocaine, ecstasy, also known as molly and marijuana”, according to court documents.
Among the guests at the party was the 17-year-old girl, known only by AB in court filings.
Having just finished her junior year at a local high school, AB claimed that she drove her mother’s car through the gated community’s security gates at 6.15 pm on July 15, 2017.
Upon arrival, guests were allegedly ordered to place their cellphones in a large bowl, in order to prevent evidence of the party from spreading.
The court documents said AB was naked among the adult guests.
The documents made no allegations and did not provide any evidence that Mr Gaetz had used illegal drugs or had sex with the underage girl.
Witnesses do, however, place him in attendance at the party.
The House Committee’s investigation is reported to contain a statement from an ex-girlfriend of Mr Gaetz who said he was in attendance at a party where drugs were present and it was also attended by the female with whom he is alleged to have had sex when she was a child, according to ABC News.
Jacob Bliss, a spokesman for Gaetz office, told the Orlando Sentinel on Friday that Mr Gaetz “has never participated” in the alleged events.
“If people said otherwise, they are either confused or lying,” Mr Bliss said.
Evidence, including an interview with AB, remains sealed inside unreleased court documents.
Why does Donald Trump like Matt Gaetz?
As a five-term representative for the Florida Panhandle, Mr Gaetz has been a loyal defender of Mr Trump.
He travelled to New York earlier this year when the president-elect was facing his own hush money trial.
In June when Mr Trump was facing off against Joe Biden in a presidential debate, Mr Gaetz made sure he was a strong presence in the spin room, talking up the now-president-elect’s successes.
He went on to help Mr Trump prepare for a debate against Kamala Harris, in which the Republican made the untrue claim that Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, were eating cats and dogs.
Both men share a claim that the justice system, including the Department of Justice, has unfairly gone after them.
Mr Gaetz, over the years has also positioned himself as a man willing to take on the FBI, an agency that Mr Trump has complaints over because of its probe into his campaign’s connection to Russia in 2016 and a raid over classified documents at Mar-a-Lago.
