Gaetz’s Sexual Misconduct Report Release Blocked by House GOP
(Bloomberg) -- Republicans on the House Ethics Committee voted Wednesday to keep confidential its findings on the sexual misconduct probe into Matt Gaetz, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for attorney general, the panel’s top Democrat said.
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The 10-member panel met behind closed doors for more than two hours, with all five GOP members voting to block the report’s release ahead of the Senate’s consideration of Gaetz’s nomination, Democrat Representative Susan Wild of Pennsylvania said after the deliberations. Democrats calling to disclose the findings needed at least one Republican to have crossed over, she said.
The Ethics Committee, which typically operates in private, faces mounting pressure to publicize its finding as scrutiny of Gaetz intensifies after Trump nominated him on Nov. 13 to lead the Justice Department.
Ethics Chairman Michael Guest provided few details other than to say there was “no agreement to release the report.” Wild fired back after the meeting, saying Guest’s remarks incorrectly characterized the deliberations.
“I do not want the American public or anyone else to think,” she said, “that what transpired today would be some sort of indication that the committee had unity, or consensus on this issue.”
House Democrats plan to force the issue, and will need at least a few Republicans to back them.
Illinois Representative Sean Casten said he’ll file a privileged House resolution on Wednesday to force a vote that will require the committee to release its findings.
The privileged resolution gives Speaker Mike Johnson up to two legislative days to schedule floor action. A vote to table Casten’s resolution could precede a vote on the resolution itself.
“This information must be made available for the Senate to provide its constitutionally required advice and consent,” Casten said in a statement.
Gaetz, who quit his House seat last week, had been the subject of a long—running House probe over allegations he had sex with a 17-year-old girl in exchange for money, took illicit drugs and accepted improper gifts. The former Florida representative has denied wrongdoing.
Separately, Gaetz was joined by Vice President-elect JD Vance in his meeting Wednesday with senators in the Capitol, seeking their support.
Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, currently the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said after the Gaetz meeting that he’d tend to defer to the president on his choices “unless the evidence suggests disqualification.”
Gaetz’s appointment, along with other contentious picks by Trump, have sparked bipartisan calls for increased scrutiny, setting up a clash with the president-elect and his loyalists in the Capitol. Several establishment Republicans in the Senate want to uphold the tradition of seeking FBI vetting on presidential nominees.
Other names that have sparked concerns even among Republicans are Fox News Channel host Pete Hegseth to head the Pentagon, vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to run the Department of Health and Human Services, and former Representative Tulsi Gabbard for national intelligence.
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