Matt Gaetz, Trump’s pick for attorney general, had been a subject of a sex trafficking investigation

Matt Gaetz, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to run the Justice Department, has previously been investigated over allegations of sex trafficking of a 17-year-old girl — a federal probe that ultimately did not yield criminal charges.

Gaetz — a House member from Florida who has been one of Trump’s most loyal foot soldiers on Capitol Hill — has long denied the allegations and was told Feb. 15, 2023, that the Justice Department was ending its investigation without charging him.

“We have just spoken with the DOJ and have been informed that they have concluded their investigation into Congressman Gaetz and allegations related to sex trafficking and obstruction of justice and they have determined not to bring any charges against him,” Gaetz’s attorneys said then.

Before he resigned from Congress after he become Trump’s choice for attorney general Wednesday, Gaetz remained under investigation by the bipartisan House Ethics Committee, which is looking into whether he engaged in sexual misconduct and illicit drug use.

NBC News reported in 2021 that federal investigators were looking into Gaetz’s travel to the Bahamas with women and specifically whether those women were paid to travel for sex, which could violate federal law, a law enforcement official and another person familiar with the matter said.

At the time of the reporting, a Gaetz spokesperson said: “Rep. Gaetz has never paid for sex, nor has he had sex with an underage girl. What began with blaring headlines about ‘sex trafficking’ has now turned into a general fishing exercise about vacations and consensual relationships with adults.”

Law enforcement sources have said the investigation originated from an inquiry into Joel Micah Greenberg, a onetime friend of Gaetz’s and former tax commissioner in Seminole County, Florida. Greenberg pleaded guilty in May 2021 to several crimes, including the sex trafficking of a 17-year-old girl.

Federal prosecutors in the summer of 2021 were also investigating whether Gaetz might have obstructed justice during a phone call with a witness in a potential sex crimes probe, a law enforcement source said.

The obstruction probe, which stemmed from an inquiry about whether Gaetz had an improper relationship with a minor, was first reported by Politico, which cited two sources familiar with the case.

A spokesperson for Gaetz, who has not been charged with any crime in that investigation and has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing, scoffed at the time of the news of the obstruction inquiry.

“Congressman Gaetz pursues justice, he doesn’t obstruct it,” the spokesperson said in a written statement.

“After two months, there is still not a single on-record accusation of misconduct, and now the ‘story’ is changing yet again.”

Also in the summer of 2021, the FBI investigated and the Justice Department secured the guilty plea of a man involved in a plot to shake down Gaetz’s father, Don Gaetz, for $25 million.

Stephen Alford, 62, of Fort Walton Beach, Florida, said he could help the Matt Gaetz secure a presidential pardon, authorities said.

Alford said he could help free former FBI agent Robert Levinson from Iran for $25 million from Don Gaetz and in exchange secure Matt Gaetz’s pardon from the Biden administration, claiming he had access to President Joe Biden.

Matt Gaetz has said the allegations stemmed from the extortion plot.

Gaetz told the House Ethics Committee in September that he is finished cooperating with the panel, which he said asked him for a list of adult sexual partners over the last seven years.

In a letter to the committee and later to reporters, Gaetz blasted the investigation as “not the business of Congress.”

“They’re just nosy is what they are, and it’s none of their business,” Gaetz told NBC News at the end of September.

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com