The Home Ethics Committee launched its long-awaited report into former Rep. Matt Gaetz on Monday, placing a bookend on the panel’s roughly 3 1/2-year investigation into the firebrand Florida Republican.
The report — which spans 42 pages and contains a number of extra in displays — discovered “substantial evidence” that Gaetz violated Home guidelines, state and federal legal guidelines, outlining allegations of prostitution, statutory rape and illicit drug use, amongst different accusations. Gaetz has denied any wrongdoing.
Listed below are 5 takeaways from the report.
An embarrassing blow to Gaetz
A lot of the allegations within the Ethics Committee’s report will not be new, provided that the panel publicly launched the areas it was investigating.
However the huge — and salacious — particulars included within the physique of labor are dealing an embarrassing blow to Gaetz, who tried till the ultimate hours to maintain the findings underneath wraps.
The most important bombshell accusation within the report is that Gaetz, then a 35-year-old, first-term congressman, twice had intercourse with a girl who was then 17.
The lady, recognized as Sufferer A within the report, advised the committee she had intercourse with Gaetz two occasions when she was at a celebration on July 15, 2017. The panel stated it didn’t know whether or not Gaetz was conscious of the woman’s age.
The lady recalled receiving $400 from Gaetz that night.
The report additionally detailed Gaetz’s alleged use of medicine, together with cocaine, ecstasy and marijuana; accused him of accepting improper items within the type of transportation and lodging associated to a 2018 journey to the Bahamas that featured sexual encounters and drug use; and alleged that he used “the power of his office to assist a woman with whom he was engaged in a sexual relationship in obtaining an expedited passport,” regardless of that lady not being his constituent.
Prime Republicans couldn’t maintain a lid on the report
Prime Republicans tried to maintain a lid on the Gaetz report, however their efforts failed.
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) urged the Ethics Committee to not launch its report into Gaetz after he was nominated by President-elect Trump to be legal professional basic.
On the time, he advised reporters: “I think it’s a terrible breach of protocol and tradition and the spirit of the rule of law” and known as the prospect of constructing the findings public “a terrible precedent to set.”
He re-upped that place a variety of occasions.
Rep. Michael Visitor (R-Miss.), the chair of the Ethics Committee, advised reporters he had “reservations about releasing any unfinished work” when requested Gaetz as soon as he was nominated to be legal professional basic.
Visitor then stated Gaetz’s choice to withdraw his title from consideration for the highest job on the Division of Justice “should end the discussion of whether or not the Ethics Committee should continue to move forward in this matter.”
On the finish of the day, nonetheless, Johnson and Visitor misplaced that battle, with no less than one Republican voting with all Democrats to launch the report.
On the evenly divided committee, a majority vote is required to launch studies.
Reps. Andrew Garbarino (R-N.Y.) and Dave Joyce (R-Ohio) voted in assist of publishing the findings, a supply confirmed to The Hill. Axios first reported these votes.
The committee launched its report on Dec. 23, in the future earlier than Christmas Eve and at a time when each the Home and Senate are out of session.
The findings, nonetheless, nonetheless drew widespread headlines, and Visitor sharply criticized the final word choice to make the physique of labor public in a press release on behalf of those that opposed its launch.
“While we do not challenge the Committee’s findings, we take great exception that the majority deviated from the Committee’s well-established standards and voted to release a report on an individual no longer under the Committee’s jurisdiction, an action the Committee has not taken since 2006,” Visitor stated within the assertion, which was included within the closing report.
Does the Gaetz report’s launch change precedent?
The Ethics Committee’s choice to launch its report into Gaetz, a former member of Congress, was a uncommon one.
That raises questions on what the panel’s precedent is because it appears to proceed its work investigating alleged wrongdoing in Congress going ahead.
The final time the committee launched a report on a former member, as Visitor famous, was in 2006, when the panel printed its findings from its investigation into former Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fla.), specializing in the conduct of Home GOP leaders.
The committee did the identical in 1987, when it printed its report into former Rep. William Boner (D-Tenn.) after he resigned from the Home.
Regardless of these earlier cases, a number of Republicans who have been in opposition to publishing the Gaetz findings contended that such a transfer would set a brand new, harmful precedent. Visitor made that argument in his assertion within the report.
“We believe that operating outside the jurisdictional bounds set forth by House Rules and Committee standards, especially when making public disclosures, is a dangerous departure with potentially catastrophic consequences,” Visitor stated.
Gaetz’s future is in query
The discharge of the Ethics report can also be elevating questions on what Gaetz’s future appears like, now that the salacious allegations, proof and particulars are out within the open for the general public to learn.
Gaetz resigned from the Home after Trump nominated him to be legal professional basic, later withdrawing his title from consideration amid mounting GOP opposition. It’s doubtless that the contents of the Ethics report would have tanked his bid, resulting in the identical conclusion.
The previous congressman then introduced he would not take the oath of workplace for the 119th Congress, which he received election to, earlier than revealing that he would be a part of One America Information as an anchor in January, giving him a perch to proceed his involvement in politics off of Capitol Hill.
Gaetz, nonetheless, has lately floated future bids for public workplace, efforts that may very well be sophisticated by the contents of his Ethics Committee report being public.
On Sunday, the ex-congressman stated he would possibly run for Sen. Marco Rubio’s (R-Fla.) Senate seat, which he’s leaving to be Trump’s secretary of state. Gaetz’s title has additionally been floated as somebody who might run for governor of Florida in 2026, since Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) might be term-limited.
Gaetz doubtless might be pressed on the proof and allegations detailed within the Ethics Committee’s report if he runs for public workplace sooner or later, which might make his path to victory troublesome.
Rep. Glenn Ivey (D-Md.), a member of the panel, stated the panel’s work contains info future voters or employers would need to know earlier than making a choice about Gaetz.
“I don’t know if he’s ever going to run for office again or whatever, but whether he’s in public or private life, I think there’s information in here that voters or employers or whoever would want to know before they made certain decisions about him,” Ivey advised The Hill in a telephone interview after the discharge of the report.
Gaetz denies wrongdoing
Gaetz has strongly denied any wrongdoing at each step of the committee’s investigation, significantly allegations that he had sexual contact with a girl youthful than 18 years outdated, issuing statements and posting on social media to push again on the allegations.
Final week, after information broke that the panel had voted to launch its report into Gaetz, the previous congressman stated some conduct from his previous was “embarrassing, though not criminal.”
The Florida Republican, nonetheless, stepped up his criticism on Monday morning, shortly earlier than the committee formally launched its report — however after it had leaked to some retailers. He filed a lawsuit in opposition to the panel in an effort to dam it from publishing its physique of labor.
“The Committee’s apparent intention to release its report after explicitly acknowledging it lacks jurisdiction over former members, its failure to follow constitutional notions of due process, and failure to adhere to its own procedural rules and precedent represents an unprecedented overreach that threatens fundamental constitutional rights and established procedural protections,” Gaetz’s attorneys wrote.
The previous congressman advised The Hill the claims “would be destroyed in court — which is why they were never made in any court against me,” referring to the Division of Justice’s choice to not cost Gaetz in 2023 after investigating whether or not he violated intercourse trafficking legal guidelines associated to a 17-year-old and touring along with her throughout state traces.
The lawsuit, nonetheless, is essentially moot now because the Ethics Committee launched its report mid-morning on Monday, placing its findings out for the general public to overview.
Emily Brooks contributed.
