Matt Gaetz issues ‘final’ response to Ethics committee probe of underage sex claims

Matt Gaetz has published a lengthy letter he’d sent to the House Ethics Committee informing the panel’s lawmakers that he would no longer be complying with the Ethics investigation into allegations that he had slept with an underage girl.

The Florida congressman rehashed a number of familiar complaints in the letter, which accused the panel of pursuing the investigation for the purpose of humiliating him and damaging him politically after a Justice Department investigation ended without charges being filed.

But he went further than just denouncing the committee — Gaetz also would go on to write a Twitter thread on Thursday discussing the evidence in his case, and included several pieces of evidence he argued exonerated his name.

The tone of Gaetz’s letter was angry and defiant: “Your correspondence of September 4 asks whether I have engaged in sexual activity with any individual under 18. The answer to this question is unequivocally NO. You can apply this response to every version of this question, in every forum.” He also denied using “illicit” drugs.

Altogether, the thread and letter represent Gaetz’s latest salvo against the Ethics Committee, which clearly aims at repairing his image with both journalists and moderate voters.

The congressman made no mention of the “Deep State” or any overarching conspiracies against him or the former president — instead, he focused on two pieces of information he argued undermined the allegations against him. One was a grainy image of a text message, purportedly from his former friend and confidante Joel Greenberg, stating that he was arranging to pay for legal representation for someone — presumably the underaged girl Gaetz is accused of having sex with. No actual evidence of