WASHINGTON, United States (AFP)— A former US lawmaker who was Donald Trump’s first pick to run the Justice Department regularly paid for lurid sex sessions at drug-fuelled parties, including with a 17-year-old school girl, according to a scathing congressional report released Monday.

Matt Gaetz also regularly used cocaine and ecstasy, and bought marijuana from his Capitol Hill office, said the 37-page document, the culmination of a long-running probe by the House Ethics Committee.

“The committee determined there is substantial evidence that Representative Gaetz violated House rules and other standards of conduct prohibiting prostitution, statutory rape, illicit drug use, impermissible gifts, special favors or privileges, and obstruction of Congress,” panel investigators wrote.

Gaetz has repeatedly denied wrongdoing — pointing to the Justice Department’s decision not to bring charges against him in 2023 after a criminal probe — and the report came out as his lawsuit to block its release was denied.

Congressional investigators found that the 42-year-old Republican broke multiple Florida laws on sexual misconduct, although they cleared him of federal sex trafficking violations.

The report listed payments by Gaetz totalling more than US$90,000 to 12 women “likely in connection with sexual activity and/or drug use” between 2017 and 2020.

They focused on a 2018 trip to the Bahamas during which Gaetz is alleged to have had sex with four women and to have taken party drug ecstasy, a Schedule I substance in the same legal category as heroin.

The ex-congressman is an incendiary figure with few friends on Capitol Hill, but was a staunch Trump loyalist and a favorite of the president-elect’s ardent supporters.

Tech billionaire Elon Musk — who is Trump’s incoming “efficiency czar” but has inserted himself into all manner of decision-making in the presidential transition process and in congressional politics — lauded Gaetz as America’s “Hammer of Justice” when he was nominated.

“Matt Gaetz has 3 critical assets that are needed for the AG role: a big brain, a spine of steel and an axe to grind,” Musk posted on his social media platform, X.

“He is the Judge Dredd America needs to clean up a corrupt system and put powerful bad actors in prison.”

Gaetz resigned from Congress in November after Trump nominated him for US attorney general — but that was after he had just been reelected for the session beginning in January and there is nothing to stop him taking up his seat.

The allegations against Gaetz had been openly discussed for years before he was tapped by Trump, and he withdrew from consideration when it became clear he lacked the backing from Republicans to win Senate confirmation.

Gaetz posted a series of tweets refuting some of the report’s allegations, including that he paid for sex.

“Giving funds to someone you are dating — that they didn’t ask for — and that isn’t ‘charged’ for sex is now prostitution?!?” he posted on X.

“There is a reason they did this to me in a Christmas Eve-Eve report and not in a courtroom of any kind where I could present evidence and challenge witnesses.”

Women told congressional investigators they were paid for sex at parties and other events by Gaetz and his friend Joel Greenberg, a former tax collector in Florida who was jailed for 11 years.

One encounter allegedly involved a 17-year-old, who told the committee she had sex with Gaetz twice at a July 2017 party.

“Victim A recalled receiving $400 in cash from Representative Gaetz that evening, which she understood to be payment for sex. At the time, she had just completed her junior year of high school,” the report says.

All the women who testified said the sexual encounters with Gaetz were consensual. Gaetz denied having sex with a minor in written responses to the committee.