Washington (AP) The House thwarted Democrats’ attempts on Thursday to deliver the long-awaited ethics report to former Representative Matt Gaetz, casting further doubt on the outcome of any resolution to the years-long inquiry into claims of sexual misconduct.
The votes were almost party-line, despite the Florida Republican’s withdrawal as President-elect Donald Trump’s attorney general nomination and the Democrats’ insistence that the findings be made public. The only Republican to back the initiative was Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Calif.
The majority of Republicans have maintained that Gaetz’s resignation from the House put a stop to any legislative investigation of him. Additionally, Speaker Mike Johnson asked that the committee refrain from publishing its report, stating that doing so would set a disastrous precedent.
Although ethics findings have occasionally been made public following a member’s resignation, this is incredibly uncommon.
Rep. Sean Casten, D-Ill., who proposed one of the legislation to force the publication, stated just prior to the voting that Republicans would have succeeded in ignoring serious accusations of sexual misconduct if they rejected the release. Gaetz has refuted the allegations on several occasions.
The Ethics panel convened earlier Thursday to consider the Gaetz report, but they did not reach a resolution, stating in a brief statement that the issue is still being discussed. There are just a few weeks left until a new session of Congress starts, so it’s unclear if the document will ever be seen.
It s the culmination of weeks of pressure on the Ethics committee s five Republicans and five Democrats who mostly work in secret as they investigate allegations of misconduct against lawmakers.
When Gaetz abruptly resigned from Congress last month following Trump’s statement that he wanted his pal in the Cabinet, the investigation’s fate became unclear. Although the committee usually concludes investigations when members of Congress leave, Gaetz’s situation was unique because of his possible involvement in the next administration.
The committee’s chairman, Rep. Michael Guest, R-Miss., stated on Wednesday that because Gaetz resigned as Trump’s pick to lead the Justice Department and departed Congress, there is no longer the same urgency to disclose the report.
I haven’t wavered on it. He isn’t a member anymore. Guest stated that because he retracted his nomination to be the attorney general, the Senate will no longer confirm him.
Lawmakers on the bipartisan committee have also been tense over the Gaetz report. The panel’s top Democrat, Pennsylvania Representative Susan Wild, publicly chastised Guest last month for misrepresenting a prior meeting to the media.
Gaetz has denied any misconduct and stated last year that he was not charged with any federal crimes as a result of the Justice Department’s separate investigation into claims of sex trafficking involving minors.
His former political ally As part of a plea agreement with prosecutors in 2021, fellow Republican Joel Greenberg, the tax collector for Seminole County, Florida, acknowledged paying women and a minor girl to have sex with him and other men. When he entered a guilty plea, court filings did not name the males.In late 2022, Greenberg received an 11-year prison sentence.
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