House Ethics panel to meet Wednesday to discuss Gaetz investigation: Report

The committee is scheduled to meet on Wednesday, five days after it was initially slated to hold a meeting to discuss the report. However, that meeting was later postponed after Gaetz abruptly left Congress last week when he was tapped as President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for attorney general. 

A spokesperson for the Ethics Committee declined to comment on its meeting schedule when asked by the Washington Examiner. 

The timing of Gaetz’s nomination and his resignation raised eyebrows across Capitol Hill. GOP leaders were also quick to distance themselves from the postponement, telling reporters they have nothing to do with the Ethics Committee’s decisions or timing on its reports. 

It remains unclear how the committee will move forward with the report as the panel typically refrains from publishing its findings of lawmakers after they have left office. However, it’s not completely unprecedented. At least two members of Congress have had their ethics inquiries published after leaving the House: former Reps. Bill Boner and Mark Foley as well as former Sen. John Ensign. 

Still, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has asked that the report be kept under wraps even after initially telling reporters he would not get involved.

“I’m going to strongly request that the Ethics Committee not issue the report because that is not the way we do things in the House,” Johnson told reporters on Friday. “The rules of the House have always been that a former member is beyond the jurisdiction of the Ethics Committee, and so I don’t think that’s relevant.”

Over the weekend, Johnson denied that he shifted his tone because of private conversations with Trump, telling CNN that he has not spoken with the president-elect about the ethics report.

Since April 2021, the House Ethics Committee has been investigating allegations the Florida lawmaker may have “engaged in sexual misconduct and illicit drug use, accepted improper gifts, dispensed special privileges and favors to individuals with whom he had a personal relationship, and sought to obstruct government investigations of his conduct.”

ABC News reported that a woman who was part of a yearslong Justice Department investigation into sex trafficking allegations testified to the Ethics Committee that Gaetz had sex with her when she was 17 years old. Gaetz has denied all the allegations, and the federal investigation resulted in no charges against the attorney general nominee.

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Rep. Glenn Ivey (D-MD), who sits on the House Ethics Committee, told the Washington Examiner that he was not sure what the precedent for that would be, but he noted that “typically for confirmation hearings, the Senate has gotten whatever it’s wanted.”

“In fact, I think it’s essential for them to get that kind of information before they make a decision of this magnitude,” Ivey said.