The House Ethics Committee secretly voted to release the findings of its investigation, multiple outlets have reported
After weeks of stalling, failed votes, and lame excuses, it seemed decided that the public would not be granted access to the House Ethics Committee’s final report on their investigation into embattled former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.). But in a surprise twist first reported Wednesday by CNN, the committee secretly voted to release the report as a final act before the end of the current Congress. Fox News later confirmed the vote.
According to CNN, the report will be released on the Ethics Committee’s final day of voting before the holidays. It is unclear which Republican member (or members) of the committee — which is split evenly down partisan lines — voted with Democrats to authorize the release of its findings.
Last month, Gaetz resigned from Congress ostensibly in a bid to pursue a nomination to become President-elect Donald Trump’s attorney general. His exit from the House coincidentally came days before the Ethics Committee was scheduled to release a report detailing the findings of their investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct, including an alleged sexual relationship with a 17-year-old girl.
Many, including House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), had argued that the report shouldn’t be released given Gaetz’s departure from the House. Senators, many of them Republicans, upped the public pressure for the committee’s findings to be made public given their need to vet Gaetz as a prospective attorney general. While releasing ethics reports after the departure of a lawmaker is not standard practice, critics of the right-wing campaign to keep it under wraps have pointed to past instances of a report being released despite a member’s resignation.
Gaetz withdrew his name from consideration for attorney general in late November as damning details of the report found their way into the press and it became abundantly clear that his nomination was no longer viable. Earlier this month, Gaetz accepted a gig as a primetime host for the pro-Trump cable channel Newsmax.
