Nathan Nelson, former staff member of US Representative Matt Gaetz, speaks to the media in Santa Rosa Beach, Florida, April 5, 2021.
Colin Hackley | Reuters
One of Mr Matt Gaetz’s former employees said on Monday that FBI agents contacted him last week, shortly after news that the Florida Republican was involved in a federal sex trafficking investigation.
Nathan Nelson, Gaetz’s former director of military affairs, said that two agents questioned him at his home after hearing from members of the media that Nelson knew of Gaetz’s alleged involvement in illegal activities. Media informants told the FBI that Nelson resigned because of this knowledge, the former aide said.
“I’m here to declare this morning that nothing could be further from the truth,” Nelson said at a news conference in northwest Florida. “Neither I nor any other member of Congressman Gaetz’s team knew about illegal activities.”
Nelson said his departure from Gaetz’s office last fall was unrelated to the Justice Department’s investigation into the charges against the 38-year-old congressman. The investigation into whether Gaetz trafficked an underage girl began in the final months of former President Donald Trump’s term, the New York Times reported on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, Gaetz in a new article declared that he “absolutely does not resign” from Congress and “will not be intimidated or extorted” by his political opponents.
Gaetz, an outspoken loyal to Trump, previously denied having a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old girl and paying for his travels with him, and he remained defiant in Monday morning’s article.
“Since I’m playing under the revolver, let me address the charges against me directly. First, I never, never paid for sex. And second, I, as an adult man, did not sleep with a 17-year-old woman. -old years, “Gaetz wrote in the Washington Examiner.
Last week, Gaetz said in a statement that he and his family are being threatened by a multimillion-dollar extortion scheme involving a former Justice Department employee. Law enforcement officials told NBC News that the DOJ is conducting a separate investigation into Gaetz’s allegations of being extorted.
The sex trafficking investigation involving Gaetz came from another case related to his former associate, Joel Greenberg, a local Florida official who was indicted last summer on several charges, including child sex trafficking.
Nelson said at the news conference that he had been approached by federal agents a day after the Times’ first report on alleged sex trafficking.
The former Gaetz aide said he did not know anything specific about the investigation and had never heard of Greenberg before last week’s reports. But the “baseless allegation” that prompted the FBI to approach him “makes me even more convinced” that the charges against Gaetz “are equally fabricated,” said Nelson.
Another Gaetz employee, communications director Luke Ball, resigned last week.
Nelson worked in Gaetz’s office for more than four years before leaving last October, according to his LinkedIn profile. He said on Monday that his departure was planned.
Nelson told reporters he is still “vaguely affiliated” to Gaetz’s office as a “unpaid” military adviser, but said he has not spoken to Gaetz in “several months”.