Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) told a former White House aide that he was seeking a preemptive pardon from President Donald Trump in connection with an investigation in which he is a target, according to testimony before the Select Committee on the Chamber that investigates on January 6. attack on the US Capitol.
Johnny McEntee, according to people familiar with his testimony, told investigators that Gaetz told him during a brief meeting “that they are starting an investigation on him or that there is an investigation on him,” without specifying who Gaetz was investigating.
McEntee added that Gaetz told him that “he didn’t do anything wrong, but they’re trying to make his life hell, and you know, if the president could pardon him, that would be great.” Gaetz told McEntee that he had asked White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows for the pardon.
Asked by investigators if Gaetz’s pardon request was in the context of the Justice Department’s investigation into whether Gaetz violated federal sex-trafficking laws, McEntee replied: “I think that was the context, yes ,” according to people familiar with the witness who spoke. with the condition of anonymity to deal with sensitive issues.
The testimony is the first indication that Gaetz was specifically seeking a pardon for his own exposure related to the Justice Department’s investigation into whether he violated sex-trafficking laws. His public stance in the final months of the Trump administration was far less specific, repeatedly calling for broad preemptive pardons to avoid potential Democratic investigations.
McEntee testified that Gaetz met him briefly one night and discussed the issue of the pardon, but McEntee could not recall whether their conversation took place before or after the Jan. 6, 2021, uprising, according to people familiar with the witness.
Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) first got involved in politics a decade ago. It didn’t take long for him to find stardom in the Republican Party. (Video: Drea Cornejo/The Washington Post, Photo: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
The Justice Department’s investigation into whether Gaetz paid for sex, paid for women to travel across state lines for sex and had sex with a 17-year-old boy opened in recent months from the Trump administration with the approval of counsel. General William P. Barr. The investigation stemmed from a federal investigation of Gaetz’s friend who is now a convicted sex trafficker. Gaetz has denied paying for sex or having sex with a minor as an adult.
McEntee did not respond to repeated requests for comment. Neither Meadows nor his attorney immediately responded to requests for comment. A spokesman for Gaetz declined to address the testimony or whether Gaetz discussed a pardon with McEntee or Meadows, instead responding that Gaetz never directly asked Trump for a pardon.
What you need to know about the sex trafficking investigation involving Matt Gaetz
“Congressman Matt Gaetz discussed pardons for many others publicly and privately at the end of President Donald Trump’s first term,” the spokesman wrote in an email. “As for himself, President Trump addressed this malicious rumor over a year ago by saying, ‘Congressman Matt Gaetz has never apologized to me.'” Rep. Gaetz continues to stand by President Trump’s statement.”
The House select committee also declined to comment.
Gaetz has not been charged with any crime, but Joel Greenberg, a partner of Gaetz’s and a former tax collector for Seminole County, Fla., pleaded guilty last spring to six criminal charges, including sex trafficking of a minor . Greenberg agreed to fully cooperate with prosecutors and testify in court, and has been providing investigators with information about Gaetz since 2020, The Washington Post previously reported.
Joel Greenberg, a former tax collector in Seminole County, Florida, pleaded guilty on May 17 to sex trafficking of a minor and a number of other crimes. (Video: Reuters, Photo: Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel via AP and Jabin Botsford/Reuters)
“The last time I had sex with a 17-year-old, I was 17,” Gaetz previously said. On November 25, 2020, weeks after Trump lost the presidential election, Gaetz told Fox News that Trump “should pardon everyone from himself to officials in his administration to Joe Exotic if he has to” .
Cassidy Hutchinson, a top White House aide to Meadows, told the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack that Gaetz and Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) both recalled advocating a “blanket pardon” for lawmakers. who attended a meeting on December 21, 2020 at the White House to discuss efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. In testimony previously issued, he said they also advocated for a pardon for “ a handful of other members who were not at the December 21st meeting.”
Hutchinson added that Gaetz, however, “was personally pushing” for a pardon “since the beginning of December.” But the focus of that pardon request was unclear from Hutchinson’s testimony. “I’m not sure why Mr. Gaetz contacted me to ask if he could have a meeting with Mr. Meadows to receive a presidential pardon,” he added.
Brooks, who submitted a pardon request in an email to a White House aide at the time, defended his actions in a statement after Hutchinson’s testimony, saying, “There was concern that Democrats abuse the judicial system by persecuting and imprisoning Republicans” to oppose Congress’ certification of the elections.
Eric Herschmann, a former Trump White House lawyer, told investigators he also believed Gaetz was asking for a pardon, according to an excerpt of testimony given during one of the committee’s public hearings.
“The general tone was that we could be prosecuted because we were on the defensive of, you know, the president’s positions on these things,” Herschmann recalled. “The pardon I was discussing asking was as broad as you can describe, from the beginning, I remember it is, from the beginning of time to today for anything. Then he mentioned Nixon. And I said Nixon’s pardon it was never so broad.”
Gaetz was ultimately not pardoned by the former president.