The House Ethics Committee will meet behind closed doors Wednesday afternoon to decide whether to publicly release its long-running report on former Rep. Matt Gaetz, who recently resigned after being nominated by President-elect Donald Trump for attorney general.
Both Republican and Democratic senators have expressed interest in reviewing the report ahead of Gaetz's confirmation hearing next year. However, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), a close Trump ally who has strongly opposed releasing the report, argued that the Ethics Committee's jurisdiction only extends to sitting members, and Gaetz is no longer a member of the House of Representatives.
"I've made very clear that it's an important guardrail for our institution that we not use the House Ethics Committee to investigate and report on people who are not members of this body," Johnson said in a statement to reporters on Tuesday.
The Ethics Committee, chaired by Rep. Michael Guest (R-Miss.) and Rep. Susan Wild (D-Pa.), has spent over three years investigating allegations against Gaetz. These include accusations of sexual misconduct, drug use, accepting improper gifts, giving favors to personal acquaintances, and obstructing the investigation.
While the House Ethics Committee debates whether to release the report, a hacker claims to have accessed the unreleased findings on Matt Gaetz's alleged misconduct. The hacker, who was not identified, claimed they were able to view the report through a secure link sent between lawyers, a source told the New York Times.
A report from last week detailed that one of the women at the center of the report testified before the committee that the now former lawmaker had sex with her when she was 17. Now in her 20s, the woman testified for several days to the committee, recounting that the politician approached her sexually while she was a minor in high school.
Later, an attorney representing two women who testified provided new details about the case. Joel Leppard said that Gaetz paid the women for sex at a Florida party, where prostitution is illegal. One of the women also claimed to have witnessed Gaetz engaging in sex with a 17-year-old friend, though she did not believe Gaetz knew the person's age. The attorney added his clients want the House report to be made public, emphasizing their desire for the truth to be revealed.
Gaetz has denied all allegations, which the Trump transition team has dismissed as "baseless," citing the closure of a related investigation by the Justice Department without any charges.
Despite some Republican senators voicing concerns about Gaetz's nomination, Trump has maintained his support, saying he is not reconsidering Gaetz for the role. The president-elect has reportedly been working to rally support for Gaetz among GOP senators, according to NBC News, with Vice President-elect JD Vance meeting with them on Capitol Hill to discuss Trump's Cabinet picks.
The Ethics Committee will consider several options during its meeting, including releasing the report, forwarding it to the Senate, or taking no action. Should the committee decide against releasing the report, any House member can attempt to force a vote to make it public.
As the House Ethics Committee report on Gaetz continues to dominate the conversation given his contentious nomination to be Trump's attorney general, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene suggested releasing all such investigations against members of her own party.
"For my Republican colleagues in the House and Senate, if we are going to release ethics reports and rip apart our own that Trump has appointed, then put it ALL out there for the American people to see. Yes. All the ethics reports and claims including the one I filed, all your sexual harassment and assault claims that were secretly settled paying off victims with tax payer money, the entire Jeffrey Epstein files, tapes, recordings, witness interviews. But not just those, there's more, Epstein wasn't/isn't the only asset. If we're going to dance, let's all dance in the sunlight. I'll make sure we do," the lawmaker said in a post on X.
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