Two women told the House Ethics Committee that Matt Gaetz — the recently departed Florida congressman and President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for attorney general — sent them payments for sex and drugs and had sex with a 17-year-old at drug-fueled parties, the women’s lawyer said in a series of interviews with TV news channels on Monday.

“She arrived at the party, she had sex with Rep. Gaetz within minutes of her arrival.  Later on, when she was walking out to the pool area, she observed… Rep. Gaetz having sex with her friend, who was 17 at the time,” said Orlando-based attorney Joel Leppard, telling CBS News his client was “absolutely certain” she saw Gaetz having sex with underage girl and that the two women he represented “didn’t vote in the last two elections” and “they don’t care one way or another.”

Leppard told NBC News his client who observed this incident was 19 at the time. He said in the interviews his clients attended parties with sex and drug use from 2017 until January 2019 where they say Gaetz was in attendance. The incident with the 17-year-old girl allegedly occurred in July 2017, six months after Gaetz was sworn into Congress for the first time and shortly after he turned 35.

The attorney said that Gaetz eventually learned the person in question was a minor, telling ABC News that his client testified that the then-35-year-old broke off contact with the then-minor until turned 18, the age of consent in Florida. 

Gaetz has previously denied all wrongdoing and noted a Justice Department investigation into alleged sex trafficking resulted in no charges. Gaetz could not immediately be reached for comment on Monday, but Trump’s transition team said in a statement to multiple outlets through spokesperson Alex Pfieffer that the allegations were “baseless” and meant to “derail” Trump’s second administration, pledging that “Gaetz will be the next Attorney General.”

“The lawful, consensual, sexual activities of adults are not the business of Congress,” Gaetz wrote in a letter to the committee in September, denying all accusations.

Last week, John Clune — a Colorado-based attorney representing the woman who says she had an inappropriate relationship with Gaetz while she was still in high school — called the Florida lawmaker’s nomination “a perverse development in a truly dark series of events” and called on the House Ethics Committee to release their report “immediately.”

“She was a high school student and there were witnesses,” he wrote on social media. 

Leppard said his clients testified to the House Ethics Committee after being subpoenaed and provided thousands of pages of documents, including hundreds of text messages. The attorney also alleged Gaetz used the payment app Venmo to send money to his clients for “party favors,” which his clients understood to be code for drugs.

Members of Trump’s team and key allies, including House Speaker Mike Johnson, have continued to show their support for Gaetz amid the growing scandal and pushback.

“The reality this time is, we actually know what we’re doing. We actually know who the good guys and the bad guys are,” Donald Trump Jr., the president-elect’s son and a leading figure on his father’s transition team, told Fox News Channel’s "Sunday Morning Futures” this weekend. “And it’s about surrounding my father with people who are both competent and loyal. They will deliver on his promises. They will deliver on his message. They are not people who think they know better, as unelected bureaucrats.”

Trump himself has called at least one Republican senator to whip up support for Gaetz in recent days, North Dakota Sen. Kevin Cramer told Axios. Cramer said after his call with the president-elect that Trump “clearly wants Matt Gaetz” and that he believes “Gaetz is the one person who will have the fearlessness and ferociousness, really, to do what needs doing at the Department of Justice."

Gaetz, a Trump loyalist, would be tasked with running the Department of Justice under a president who has pledged to use the levers of power to end his own federal criminal prosecutions, investigate and prosecute his enemies, round up undocumented immigrants and challenge Democratic-controlled cities and states in the courts.

The revelations from Leppard come as the House Ethics Committee plans to meet on Wednesday to discuss its report on Gaetz and as House Speaker Mike Johnson and other key Trump allies are urging committee chair Rep. Michael Guest, R-Miss., and other members to keep the report private. Gaetz resigned from Congress after Trump tapped him to be attorney general last week, a move Guest had previously said would prevent the committee from publishing its report due to lack of jurisdiction.

Guest declined to comment on the contents of the report on Monday on Capitol Hill, but told reporters he has read the report and other members of the bipartisan committee have access to it. He told Politico earlier on Monday that Johnson had called him over the weekend to share his view that the committee should not release the report, but that he doesn’t see the opinion of his chamber’s leader “having an impact on what we as a committee ultimately decide.”

The House Ethics Committee is the lower chamber’s sole bipartisan panel, meaning it is split evenly between Republicans and Democrats with a chair from the majority party and staff hired to be nonpartisan. Johnson said last week he would "strongly request" the committee keep the report private, citing Gaetz’s resignation. But others have noted the committee released reports on members who had already left office in 2011, 2010 and 1987. 

The committee’s top Democrat, Pennsylvania Rep. Susan Wild, told reporters on Monday it should be released to the Senate and the public, “as we have done with many other investigative reports in the past.” Wild confirmed the committee was meeting on Wednesday.

And some Senate Republicans, who will be tasked with confirming Gaetz to his position, have said they want to see the report before elevating the Florida Republican to the highest law enforcement office in the nation. 

Texas Sen. John Cornyn, a member of Senate GOP leadership, said on Monday it was likely the House Ethics Committee’s witnesses would be called to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee before Gaetz’s confirmation. Leppard told CBS News his clients were afraid if they were called to testify, “they might not be safe in their jobs.”

“The truth is the information is going to come out one way or the other,” Cornyn told Punchbowl News, adding the goal was to both verify Gaetz was suitable for the job and “protect the president against any surprises that might damage his administration.”

Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, the incoming Republican chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has repeatedly refused to say if he would ask for a copy of the House Ethics report. 

Prior to his nomination for attorney general, top Republicans publicly accused Gaetz of the alleged misconduct, including former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Oklahoma Sen. Markwayne Mullin. 

The Associated Press contributed to this report.