'Devastating': Fox News host goes after Matt Gaetz for 'statutory rape'

Fox News host Howard Kurtz kicked off his Sunday Media Buzz program by highlighting "statutory rape" allegations against former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), President-elect Donald Trump's failed nominee for attorney general.

In his opening monologue, Kurtz argued a House Ethics Committee report vindicated Gaetz's Republican opponents.

"The Ethics Report found substantial evidence that Gaetz committed statutory rape by sleeping with a 17-year-old," the Fox News host noted. "The report says he generally paid $400 for young women to come to Washington or New York for sexual encounters, that he took such illegal drugs as cocaine and ecstasy, that he accepted improper gifts, that he violated federal and state laws."

"Now, Gaetz paid one woman $5,000 over two years, according to the report," he continued. "Another said the use of drugs impaired her ability to fully consent."

Kurtz pointed out that Gaetz admitted sending funds to women he dated and denied having sex with a 17-year-old girl.

"It's embarrassing, though not criminal, that I probably partied, womanized, drank, and smoked more than I should have earlier in life," Gaetz wrote in one social media post.

Kurtz also concluded that the ethics committee report "would have quickly ended his nomination battle."

"This House ethics report naturally getting an enormous amount of media attention paints a pretty devastating portrait of Matt Gaetz, particularly this accusation about him having sex with a 17-year-old high school student," he added.

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Conservative National Review writer Caroline Downey also slammed Gaetz.

"Matt Gaetz is an arrogant blowhard showboat and playboy involved in a sex scandal," she said. "And he made it really easy for legacy media to hate him because he liked to sow chaos in Congress for only really self-aggrandizing reasons."

Watch the video below from Fox News.