Legislative committee votes to release ethics report on Matt Gaetz

The House Ethics Committee secretly voted to release the long-awaited ethics report on former congressman Matt Gaetz, raising the possibility that allegations against the Florida Republican, who was President-elect Donald Trump’s first choice for Secretary of Justice, may be made 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 publicly report on the matter and spoke on condition of anonymity Wednesday. was the first to report the vote.

It’s a surprising turn for the often secretive panel of five Republicans and five Democrats. Just last month, members voted along party lines not to release the findings of their nearly four-year investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct with minors and illicit drug use while Gaetz was in office.

Democrats pushed to make the report public even though Gaetz was no longer in Congress and had retired as Trump’s pick to head the Justice Department. A vote on the House floor this month to force the release of the report failed; all but one Republican voted against.

Gaetz reacted on social media on Wednesday against the latest event, again denying any wrongdoing. He criticized the committee for its move after he left Congress, saying he would have “no opportunity to debate or rebut as a former member of the body.”

“It is embarrassing, although not criminal, that I probably partied, dated, drank and smoked more than I should in my youth,” Gaetz posted on the social network X. “I live a different life now.”

Most Republicans have argued that any congressional investigation into Gaetz ended when he resigned from the House of Representatives. The body’s chairman, Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, also asked the commission not to release its report, saying it would set a terrible precedent.

Although ethics reports have previously been published following a member’s resignation, this is extremely rare.

Gaetz has noted that a separate Justice Department investigation into him over sex trafficking allegations involving underage girls ended last year without federal charges.

Joel Greenberg, a Republican who served as a tax collector in Seminole County, Florida, and once a political ally of Gaetz, admitted as part of a plea deal with prosecutors in 2021 that he paid women and an underage girl so that they would have sexual relations with him and other men.

The men were not identified in court documents at the time of the guilty plea. Greenberg was sentenced in late 2022 to 11 years in prison.

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