NEWSMatt Gaetz Doubles Down on Not Sleeping With an Underage Girl During Fiery Bill Maher Interview
Matt Gaetz has continuously denied paying a minor for intercourse.
Matt Gaetz has pleaded his innocence once again.
During a guest appearance on the Sunday, January 26, episode of Bill Maher's "Club Random" podcast, the former congressman addressed claims he paid women — including a 17-year-old high school student — to sleep with him.
The former congressman withdrew from Donald Trump's attorney general pick after it caused his s-- scandal to resurface.
"So, people want to know two basic things. One, was he ever with an underage girl?" Maher, 69, pressed Gaetz during their hourlong interview, to which the 42-year-old politician replied: "No."
The comedian pointed out how the Department of Justice concluded its investigation without filing any formal charges against Gaetz, as Maher expressed his belief that this only further proved Gaetz wasn't guilty — or else he thinks the former U.S. representative would have been legally charged.
Bill Maher asked Matt Gaetz his thoughts about the House Ethics Committee's bombshell report.
"The Justice Department — this is [former President Joe] Biden's Justice Department — declined," the podcast host noted. "I can’t believe Biden’s Justice Department wouldn’t have wanted to get you if there was something. So the fact that they said 'We got nothing' tells us something."
Maher additionally brought up a shocking House Ethics Committee report that exposed text messages allegedly proving how Gaetz and his ex-associate Joel Greenberg sought out women to have intercourse with.
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Matt Gaetz admitted he has 'a lot of enemies on the Republican side.'
Greenberg pleaded guilty to a s-- trafficking charge under a 2021 plea deal, in which he admitted to paying women and underaged girls to have s-- with him and other unidentified men. The situation prompted then-Attorney General Bill Barr, 74, and the DOJ to launch an investigation into Gaetz.
The former Seminole County tax collector was sentenced to 11 years in prison for underage s-- trafficking, wire fraud, stalking, identity theft, producing a fake ID card and conspiring to defraud the US government. He received some credit for time already served.
Bill Maher interviewed Matt Gaetz on the Sunday, January 26, episode of his 'Club Random' podcast.
"The [Ethics] committee typically refrains from releasing the findings if you’ve quit already. So why did they make an exception for you? You must have bitterness about that," Maher asked Gaetz, referring to him resigning as a Florida congressman last year after President Donald Trump, 78, nominated the lawyer as his pick for attorney general.
Gaetz later rejected Trump's consideration, as the selection caused his s-- scandal to resurface.
The conservative attorney insisted he was unbothered by the report being made public, claiming, "everything goes out in Washington anyway."
"If you think that this document wasn’t going to be released in one form or the other, then you don’t understand how the leak ecosystem works in that place," Gaetz declared before citing his bad blood with former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Kevin McCarthy, 60, as potential reasoning for the release of documents related to the scandal.
"To be honest, I have a lot of enemies on the Republican side, more so than most Republican members, because I killed the golden goose," Gaetz quipped in reference to McCarthy.
