As prosecutors say, filing a charge against someone is hard work. It has many details and to be successful it must be irrefutable.
Well, it seems that the US Attorney’s Office has not been able to mount a solid case against the Republican congressman from Florida, Matt Gaetz, who made the front pages of newspapers a little over two years ago on suspicion of sex trafficking.
The investigations were quick; so much so that within a few months prosecutors realized that it was very difficult to prove that Gaetz, one of the most extreme Republican voices in the House of Representatives, had paid to have sex with several women, including a minor under 17 years of age. The congressman has always denied it.
This Wednesday the prosecutors revealed that there is no indictment of Gaetz’s lawyers and several witnesses who would be called.
“We have just spoken with the Department of Justice and were informed that they have concluded their investigation into Congressman Gaetz and the allegations related to sex trafficking and obstruction of justice and have determined not to file any charges against him,” they confirmed to chain CNN the congressman’s lawyers, Marc Mukasey and Isabelle Kirshner.
congressman’s office said in a separate statement that the Department of Justice informed them that the investigation was over and no charges will be filed.
In 2020, during the Trump administration, federal prosecutors began examining whether the 40-year-old congressman had violated federal anti-sex trafficking laws, focusing on his relationships with women recruited online for sex and whether he had had sex with a woman. minor.
Gaetz raised suspicions when he unsuccessfully appealed to the White House for a sweeping pardon before Trump left office in 2021 that could have included the sex trafficking investigation, according to people familiar with the discussions, the court recalled. New York Times.
The decision not to prosecute Gaetz It came two months after his partner, Joel Greenberg, was sentenced to 11 years in prison on charges including sex trafficking after agreeing to cooperate with prosecutors.
The prosecution has not indicated what led it to dismiss the case.
