House Ethics Committee to meet on whether to release Matt Gaetz report
The House Ethics Committee will meet on whether to release its report on former Rep. Matt Gaetz, Trump's pick for attorney general, who has been accused of sexual misconduct.
WASHINGTON — Members of the House Ethics Committee will meet behind closed doors Wednesday afternoon to discuss whether to publicly release a report detailing their sweeping investigation into former Rep. Matt Gaetz, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for attorney general.
Several Republicans and Democrats in the Senate have said they want to review the House report before a Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing for Gaetz next year. But House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., a close Trump ally, has pointed out that the Ethics Committee has jurisdiction only over sitting members, and Gaetz resigned from office last week after Trump tapped him to lead the Justice Department.
“I’ve made very clear that it’s an important guardrail for our institution that we not use the House Ethics Committee to investigate and report on persons who are not members of this body,” Johnson told reporters Tuesday. “Matt Gaetz is not a member of the body anymore.”
The bipartisan Ethics Committee — led by Chairman Michael Guest, R-Miss., and Rep. Susan Wild, D-Pa. — investigated Gaetz, R-Fla., on and off over the past three years as it looked into allegations that he engaged in sexual misconduct and illicit drug use, accepted improper gifts, gave special favors to people with whom he had personal relationships and obstructed the probe.
The committee has interviewed two women who testified that Gaetz paid them for sex at a small party in Florida, where prostitution is illegal, an attorney for the women, Joel Leppard, told NBC News this week. One of the women also testified that she witnessed Gaetz having sex with a friend who was 17 years old at the time, said Leppard, though she does not believe Gaetz knew the friend's age at the time.
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