House Ethics Committee planned to vote Friday on whether to release report on Matt Gaetz
The House Ethics Committee, which has been conducting an investigation into sexual misconduct and obstruction allegations against Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, scheduled a vote for Friday on whether to release its report, according to three sources with knowledge of the committee's work.
Hours after President-elect Donald Trump said he planned to nominate Gaetz to be attorney general, Gaetz resigned his congressional seat, effective immediately.
"I do not intend to take the oath of office for the same office in the 119th Congress, to pursue the position of Attorney General in the Trump Administration," Gaetz said in his resignation letter obtained by CBS News.
House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters that there was about an eight-week period during which Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis could fill his seat by setting the date for a special election, enabling the vacancy to be filled around the time the new Congress is seated.
The news of the scheduled vote was first reported by Punchbowl. Now that Gaetz has resigned, it is unclear whether the panel will vote on releasing the report, since Gaetz is no longer in Congress.
In June, the House Ethics Committee released a statement saying it was investigating a range of allegations against Gaetz, including sexual misconduct, illicit drug use, and bribery.
Multiple sources at the time told CBS News that four women had informed the House Ethics Committee that they had been paid to go to parties that included sex and drugs, and that Gaetz had also attended. The committee has Gaetz's Venmo transactions that allegedly show payments for the women.
Gaetz has repeatedly denied wrongdoing and has called the committee's investigation a "frivolous" smear campaign.
There is precedent in Congress on the Senate side for an ethics committee report to become public after a member resigns from Congress, however. In 2011, this happened when Sen. John Ensign of Nevada resigned amid allegations that he tried to hide an extramarital affair.
But it's not clear that that would apply to the House, leaving open the possibility that the report on Gaetz would not be released.
Among those who have given testimony to the House Ethics Committee is a woman who says she had sex with Gaetz at a 2017 party shortly after he was elected to Congress. The woman was 17 at the time.
"She was a high school student and there were witnesses," her attorney said in a statement, urging the committee to release its report on Gaetz.
Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Dick Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, called on the House Ethics panel to preserve and share the report, as well as "all relevant documentation" on Gaetz with his committee.
"The sequence and timing of Mr. Gaetz's resignation from the House raises serious questions about the contents of the House Ethics Committee report," Durbin said in a statement Thursday. "We cannot allow this valuable information from a bipartisan investigation to be hidden from the American people. Make no mistake: this information could be relevant to the question of Mr. Gaetz's confirmation as the next attorney general of the United States and our constitutional responsibility of advice and consent."
Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas told reporters Thursday morning he "absolutely" wants to see the House Ethics Committee's report on Gaetz.
"I think there should not be any limitation on the Senate Judiciary Committee's investigation, including whatever the House Ethics Committee has generated," he said. The Senate Judiciary Committee, which will be chaired by a Republican when the new Congress is seated in January, will conduct confirmation hearings for the nominee for attorney general.
Some of the allegations of sexual misconduct under review by the committee were also the subject of a previous Department of Justice probe into Gaetz. Federal investigators sought to determine if Gaetz violated sex trafficking and obstruction of justice laws, but no charges were filed.
The House Ethics Committee resumed its investigation into Gaetz in 2023, following the Justice Department's decision not to pursue charges against him.
Gaetz has long blamed then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, also a Republican, for the probe. And Gaetz later led the movement to sack McCarthy as speaker.