House Ethics Committee to meet Wednesday amid growing pressure to release Gaetz report
Washington — The House Ethics Committee is set to meet Wednesday as it faces increasing pressure to release a potentially damaging report detailing its investigation into allegations former Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz engaged in sexual misconduct and illicit drug use, two sources told CBS News.
The movements of the Ethics panel have been under heightened scrutiny since President-elect Donald Trump announced last week that he had selected Gaetz to serve as attorney general. The Florida Republican resigned his seat in the House in the wake of the announcement, which ended the Ethics Committee's jurisdiction over Gaetz since he is now a former member.
The Ethics Committee declined to comment on the upcoming meeting. The panel was supposed to meet Friday to vote on releasing the report, but Trump tapped Gaetz for the nation's top law enforcement officer days earlier. The committee then postponed its meeting.
Gaetz must win Senate confirmation to serve as attorney general, and senators have been calling to see the Ethics Committee's report as they weigh whether to approve his nomination. Any confirmation hearings, which would be conducted by the Senate Judiciary Committee, would not take place until next year after Trump is inaugurated. Republicans will gain control of the upper chamber in the next Congress, which begins Jan. 3.
Ethics Committee chairman Michael Guest told CBS News he spoke with Speaker Mike Johnson about his panel's report, but said Johnson did not try to weigh in on its release.
"He just wanted to let me know that he made a statement publicly and wanted me to be aware of that. And he reiterated that he believed that the report should not be released," Guest, a Republican from Mississippi, said.
The committee's top Democrat, Rep. Susan Wild, said the report should be made public and "certainly" released to the Senate.
"I think it should be released to the public, as we have done with many other investigative reports in the past," she told reporters Monday. "There is precedent for releasing even after a member has resigned."
Wild, of Pennsylvania, said she believes the committee should vote on whether to disclose the report and estimates there is unanimous support from Democrats to do so. But making the report public would require support from a majority of the committee, so at least one Republican would have to join their Democratic colleagues in voting to give the American people access.
Sen. John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, told reporters last week that he believes senators should have access to the Ethics Committee's findings.
"I think there should not be any limitations on the Senate Judiciary Committee's investigation, including whatever the House Ethics Committee has generated," said Cornyn, who sits on the Judiciary Committee.
GOP Sen. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma, a Trump ally, similarly told NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday that he believes the Senate should be able to see the report on Gaetz.
"Congress has to advise and consent, and Matt Gaetz is going to go through the same scrutiny as every other individual, and I'm going to give him a fair shot, just like every individual, and at the end of the day, the Senate has to confirm him," he said.
But House Speaker Mike Johnson has cautioned against the release of the report by the Ethics Committee, warning in an interview Sunday that doing so for someone who is not a current House member "would be a Pandora's box."
"What I have said with regard to the report is that it should not come out. And why? Because Matt Gaetz resigned from Congress. He is no longer a member," Johnson told CNN's "State of the Union." "There's a very important protocol and tradition and rule that we maintain that the House Ethics Committee's jurisdiction does not extend to non-members of Congress."
The House Ethics Committee first began its investigation into allegations of misconduct against Gaetz in April 2021, but deferred its consideration in response to a request from the Justice Department. It resumed its investigation in May 2023 after federal investigators declined to charge Gaetz following their sex-trafficking and obstruction probe.
Gaetz has denied any wrongdoing and blamed the ethics probe on former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. He has called the investigation a "smear." The Florida congressman helped lead the historic effort to strip McCarthy of the speaker's gavel last year.
The ethics panel said in June that it had spoken with more than a dozen witnesses, issued 25 subpoenas and reviewed thousands of pages of documents as part of its investigation into Gaetz, and determined that "certain allegations merit continued review."
The committee said it was examining accusations Gaetz engaged in sexual misconduct and illicit drug use, accepted improper gifts, gave "special privileges and favors" to people close to him and sought to obstruct government investigations into his conduct.
Multiple sources told CBS News at the time that four women told the Ethics Committee that they had been paid to go to parties, which Gaetz attended, that included sex and drugs. The panel has the Florida Republican's Venmo transactions that allegedly show payments for the women. One woman who testified to the Ethics Committee said she had sex with Gaetz at a party in 2017, just after he was elected to Congress and when she was 17 years old, sources told CBS News at the time
Her lawyer, John Clune, said on social media last week that she was a high school student and "there were witnesses."
"We would support the House Ethics Committee immediately releasing their report," Clune wrote.