CNN’s Paula Reid Says ‘Clever’ Lawyers Revealed Shocking Claims On Trump AG Pick — Like Underage Sex ‘On An Air Hockey Table’

CNN chief legal analyst Paula Reid said it was “pretty clever” of attorneys to get shocking details about the allegations against Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to be attorney general, into the public record on Monday, making special note of the claim that he had sex with a minor “on an air hockey table.”

The selection of Gaetz to be Trump’s attorney general was met with near-universal shock last Wednesday for many reasons, not the least of which is the cloud of scandal that saw Gaetz resign just in time to head off the publication of a House Ethics Committee report investigating, among other things, “sexual misconduct.”

Amid pressure to release the report, the lawyer for one of Gaetz’s accusers is leaking details, and lawyers in an unrelated lawsuit managed to get some details into the public record despite a seal on the then-underage accuser’s deposition.

On Monday afternoon’s edition of CNN’s Inside Politics, Reid laid out how they accomplished that by quoting the accuser’s testimony while questioning other witnesses:

DANA BASH: We’re learning new details about the potentially damning evidence that even Trump’s Senate allies say they want to see. CNN’s Paula Reid broke this story. Paula?

PAULA REID: Well, Dana, these new details come from a civil lawsuit filed by a Gaetz associate. Now, the former congressman is not a party to this litigation, but it targeted people involved in the criminal investigation Gates faced, including the woman who was allegedly 17 when Gates had sex with her, as well as one of Gates’s former friends.

And as a result of this lawsuit being filed, the parties engaged in discovery. They created a whole new record of evidence, some of which is public. They spoke to witnesses, including that underage girl.

Now, her deposition and those of some of the other women in the case are under seal. But lawyers in the case, they were pretty clever because they introduced portions of her testimony that’s under seal when they questioned other witnesses.

So they referenced the underage girls testimony, including that she says she had sex with Gates on an air hockey table. So the lawyer asked, quote, “And you heard her testimony that she said that you observed her and Matt Gaetz having sex on an air hockey table?”.

Now, the person being asked about that denied that it’s something that he saw. But the lawyer also throws in that quote, “The friend of the underage woman who brought her to the party testified that she, too, had sex with Gaetz at the same gathering.”.

Now, this is relevant to the Ethics Committee report because the Ethics Committee has talked to many of these same witnesses. They also have much of the evidence that was gathered in this civil litigation.

So it gives you a flavor of what they’ve gathered in their investigation.

Now, of course, we know the Justice Department investigated the former congressman over these allegations of having sex with an underage girl is whether obstruction of justice. And they opted not to charge. And he has consistently denied any wrongdoing.

Watch above via CNN’s Inside Politics.