There was no guarantee that a long-awaited House Ethics Committee report on former Rep. Matt Gaetz would ever see the light of day, especially once the Florida GOP lawmaker abruptly quit his job last month in Congress.
But the public on Monday did get to read and learn the details of allegations that played a role in disqualifying Gaetz from making it through the Senate confirmation process to serve as President-elect Donald Trump’s attorney general.
In releasing the report, the committee – which is equally divided between Republicans and Democrats – made Gaetz one of only a few former members whose Ethics Committee investigation was made public after they had resigned from office.
The committee said it unearthed “substantial evidence” that Gaetz engaged in “prostitution, statutory rape, illicit drug use” and obstruction of Congress, including paying for sex with a 17-year-old, though he did not know or ask her age at the time.
While Gaetz has been dogged by allegations of sexual misconduct in the past, the House Ethics Committee investigation into his conduct was thrown into the spotlight when Trump nominated him to be attorney general in the incoming administration.
Senators demanded more information about the allegations against Gaetz as they prepared to consider his nomination, with some Republican senators demanding access to the report as some details leaked to the press. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said he would “strongly request” the committee keep it private.
The panel met to consider whether to release the report and deadlocked along party lines in November. Gaetz pulled out of consideration shortly afterward. In a second vote earlier this month, two Republicans quietly joined their Democratic colleagues in supporting its release.
“The Committee has typically not released its findings after losing jurisdiction in a matter,” the report read. “However, there are a few prior instances where the Committee has determined that it was in the public interest to release its findings even after a Member’s resignation from Congress. The Committee does not do so lightly.”
Here’s what to know about the committee’s decision to release the report.
What has happened in the past?
It is extremely rare that the House Ethics Committee would release a report on a former member of Congress – so much so that resigning from Congress has long been considered a way for members plagued by ethics questions to avoid public release of their alleged wrongdoing.
“It’s an inducement for members to exit that the reports are not released,” said Norm Eisen, former co-counsel to the Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee during then-President Trump’s first impeachment. “So it encourages a natural sanction of the offender no longer being in a position of public service.”
In only a handful of cases, the committee has determined that the information is in the public interest despite the lawmaker no longer serving in Congress.
For example, the committee released a report in 1987 a few months after former Rep. Bill Boner, D-Tenn., resigned from Congress to become the mayor of Nashville. The report indicated Boner had taken bribes and misused campaign funds. In another case, the committee continued to investigate sexual harassment allegations against former Rep. Eric Massa, D-N.Y., who resigned in 2020, to determine whether other members covered up his conduct.
Why did the committee decide to release the report?
Rep. Glenn Ivey, D-Md., is a member of the committee who voted for the Gaetz report’s release. He told USA TODAY it was important to release the document because “the public had the right to know this sort of thing.”
In cases where there was a “relatively minor incident” the committee will choose not to release the report, Ivey said, adding: “This was anything but that.”
It was also important to signal to other House members what is expected of them as a member of Congress, Ivey said.
“Our job as the watchmen for the Congress is to let our colleagues know when there’s conduct that crosses the line,” he said. “So that it gives them guidance as to how they should conduct themselves going forward.”
Others argued the panel was dealing with another problem: Much of the information in the report had already leaked, leaving the public to speculate without the full picture.
Gaetz and Trump “put these issues in the public eye” by putting him up for attorney general, Eisen said. “They open Pandora’s Box, some of the details came out, so at that point it’s hard to close Pandora’s Box back up.”
What was the argument against releasing it?
Ethics Committee Chair Rep. Michael Guest, R-Miss., penned an addendum to the report explaining why several committee members voted against releasing the document.
Guest and his other like-minded GOP members “do not challenge the committee’s findings,” he wrote, but “we take great exception” to the decision to deviate from “well-established standards” and release a report on someone who no longer serves in the House.
Doing so is “extremely rare,” Guest argued, and may be perceived as an attempt to “weaponize” the committee’s investigation process. Releasing the report, he added, was “a dangerous departure with potentially catastrophic consequences.”
What does Matt Gaetz say?
Gaetz has maintained his innocence and attacked the credibility of the Ethics Committee. On Monday, he published a series of posts on X with snippets of witness testimony that he argued refute the committee’s findings.
“Giving funds to someone you are dating – that they didn’t ask for – and that isn’t ‘charged’ for sex is now prostitution?!?” he wrote. “There is a reason they did this to me in a Christmas Eve-Eve report and not in a courtroom of any kind where I could present evidence and challenge witnesses.”
The former Florida GOP lawmaker made a last-minute attempt in federal court Monday to block the committee’s release of the findings, claiming the committee was outside of its jurisdiction. But while Gaetz sought a temporary restraining order Monday morning to prevent the report being released, the judge in the case asked Gaetz an hour later to explain why the case was still relevant once the materials were public.
By Riley Beggin – USA TODAY