Attorney General Merrick Garland declined to prosecute former Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., despite a trail of text messages and testimony from seemingly scores of women detailing the Republican lawmaker’s alleged penchant for buying sex, including from a woman he later learned was under 18. Garland’s Justice Department then obstructed congressional investigators, claiming an internal policy — not a statute on the books — barring the sharing of any information, damning or exculpatory, that it uncovered during its own investigation into the congressman.
Gaetz was never charged with a federal crime even though his friend, former Seminole County tax collector Joel Greenberg, pleaded guilty over similar allegations. Text messages revealed in the House Ethics Committee report released Monday show Greenberg explicitly facilitated the purchase of sex for his friend in Congress, even sharing a photo of Gaetz in one of the exchanges (followed by the question: “Have you ever tried molly”).
