WASHINGTON — The House Ethics Committee voted secretly to release a long-awaited ethics report former MP Matt Gaetzraising the possibility that charges against the Florida Republican, who was President-elect Donald Trump’s first choice for attorney general, could become public in the coming days.
The bipartisan commission’s decision was made earlier this month, according to a person familiar with the vote who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity Wednesday. CNN was the first to report the vote.
It’s a stunning turnaround for an often secretive panel of five Republicans and five Democrats. Just last month, members voted along party lines not to release the results of a nearly four-year investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct with minors and illegal drug operate while Gaetz was in office.
Democrats insisted on making the report public even though Gaetz was no longer there in Congress and he had withdrawn as Trump’s choice to head the Department of Justice. A vote in the House this month to force the report’s release failed; all but one Republican voted against it.
On Wednesday, Gaetz took to social media to criticize the latest development, again denying any wrongdoing. He criticized the committee for its move after leaving Congress, saying that “as a former member of the body, he will have no opportunity to debate or rebut.”
“It’s embarrassing, but not criminal, that I probably partied, womanized, drank and smoked more than I should have early in life,” Gaetz wrote on X, the website formerly known as Twitter. “I live differently now.”
Most Republicans argued that any congressional investigation into Gaetz ended with his resignation from the House of Representatives. Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., also demanded that the committee not release its report, saying it would set a terrible precedent.
While ethics reports have been published before after a member resigns, this is extremely occasional.
Gaetz noted that a separate Justice Department investigation against him on sex trafficking allegations involving underage girls ended last year without federal charges.
One-time political ally Joel Greenberganother Republican who was a tax collector in Seminole County, Florida, admitted under the so-called begging contract with prosecutors in 2021 that he paid women and an underage girl to have sex with him and other men. When the man pleaded guilty, the men were not identified in court documents. Greenberg was convicted at the end of 2022 to 11 years in prison.
