Chief Witness Against Gaetz Is Cooperating With House Ethics Investigation

A lawyer for the chief witness against Representative Matt Gaetz, Republican of Florida, said on Friday that the witness was cooperating with a House Ethics Committee investigation into whether Mr. Gaetz had sex with an underage girl while he was serving in Congress.

Fritz Scheller, a lawyer for Mr. Gaetz’s former friend and political ally Joel Greenberg, said he provided documents to the committee related to claims Mr. Greenberg has made about Mr. Gaetz. Mr. Greenberg previously told federal investigators that he had witnessed Mr. Gaetz having sex with a 17-year-old girl.

“Mr. Greenberg has and will cooperate with any congressional request,” Mr. Scheller said in an email on Friday.

Mr. Greenberg, who pleaded guilty in May 2021 to charges including sex trafficking, is serving an 11-year prison sentence. He had previously cooperated with a Justice Department investigation into whether Mr. Gaetz had engaged in sex trafficking of a minor, a federal offense that carries a minimum of 10 years in prison.

Last year, the Justice Department quietly closed the inquiry into Mr. Gaetz after investigators concluded they could not make a strong enough case against him in court, people familiar with the matter said.

Mr. Scheller said the documents he handed over to Congress came in response to a request from the House Ethics Committee.

A spokeswoman for Mr. Gaetz, Jillian L. Wyant, said on Friday that the Justice Department had received the same material as that sent to the Ethics Committee and “deemed it unreliable and declined to press charges.” The news media, she added, “should not be laundering smears from people in prison.”

It is unclear how useful the documents will be to the committee, which began its investigation into Mr. Gaetz