Welcome to the NewsHour. A highly anticipated House Ethics Committee report details a litany of allegations against the former Republican representative from Florida, Matt Gates.

Prosecutors previously declined to charge him, but Gates's former peers found evidence that he paid several young women for sex, including an underage girl,

and partook in numerous drug-fueled sex parties. Lisa Desjardin spent the day combing through

this report about the one-time Trump nominee for Attorney General, and she joins us now.

Lisa, this is a very explicit report, and we should just alert our viewers that this is,

what we're going to talk about in the next few minutes is somewhat graphic.

In this report, what really stood out to you?

Right. Well, this contains very serious allegations and conclusions, very direct conclusions,

according to the committee, that Gates violated law in a criminal way.

So let's look at some of the main conclusions here.

First of all, they found that over the course of nearly four years, the committee found that

Gates paid tens of thousands of dollars to women, likely they write, in connection with or

for sex and drugs.

They found that he had sex with a 17-year-old girl, and according to

the committee that fits Florida's definition, where this activity was alleged to happen, of statutory

rape. Now, I also want to point out that the committee concluded that there is not evidence that he

violated sex trafficking laws. In this report, there is direct testimony from witnesses, including the

women involved, but also a very large number of text messages, either from Gates or naming him

in conversations with women. Now, it's important to say the women in these conversations have said

that this activity was consensual. This is not an allegation of assault. This instead is about paying for sex.

And the allegation of such statutory rape, the committee also goes out of its way to say,

there's no evidence that Gates knew that this girl was 17. However, they point out, according to them,

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