There is no agreement in the Lower House on the publication of a report on Trump’s candidate for attorney general

A U.S. House committee failed to reach an agreement Wednesday on whether to release the findings of its nearly completed investigative report on former Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz. President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for attorney general.

The chairman of the House Ethics Committee, Republican Rep. Michael Guest, emerged from a lengthy committee meeting and said, “There was no agreement on the panel to release the report.”

He declined to comment further. The other nine members of the commission – four Republicans and five Democrats – also did not immediately offer statements.

Gaetz was accused of sexual misconduct and illicit drug use before Trump tapped him to become the nation’s top law enforcement official in the new administration that takes office on Jan. 20.

Two media outlets, ABC News and The Washington Post, reported that the commission had obtained documents showing that Gaetz paid a total of more than $10,000 between July 2017 and late January 2019 to two women who appeared before the panel as witnesses.

The women, who were over 18 at the time of the payments, told the panel that some of the money was for sex.

A spokesperson for the Trump transition defended Gaetz in a statement.

“The Department of Justice was granted access to virtually every financial transaction Matt Gaetz made and concluded that he committed no crimes. These leaks are intended to undermine the people’s mandate to reform the Department of Justice,” with Gaetz leading the agency, the spokesperson said.

Several U.S. senators, both Democrats and Republicans, are demanding that the report be released so they can consider the extent of Gaetz’s background as they fulfill their constitutional role of confirming or rejecting a new president’s Cabinet nominees.

Hours after Trump named him as his candidate, Gaetz, 42, resigned from Congress, even though he had just been re-elected to a fifth term. His resignation ended the investigation by the House Ethics Committee, which was coming to a close.

It is not known whether the panel will release the conclusions reached by lawmakers. With the allegations against him, Gaetz quickly became Trump’s most controversial pick for his Cabinet, although the president-elect has continued to support him and has been making calls to lawmakers to bolster his chances for confirmation.

Gaetz was at the Capitol on Wednesday to meet with some of the senators who will decide his fate. The Senate has not voted to reject a presidential nominee for a Cabinet position since 1989, and members of both political parties give broad deference to new presidents to fill high-level positions with their appointees.

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham said he met with Gaetz and Vice President-elect JD Vance, still a sitting senator, and told them there would be “no rubber stamps or lynch mobs” in the confirmation process.

“These accusations will be dealt with in the commission, but [Gaetz] He deserves a chance to face his accusers,” Graham told reporters.

The Justice Department investigated the allegations against him, but last year declined to press charges.

Senate Democrats on the Judiciary Committee that will consider Gaetz’s nomination called on the FBI to release the evidence file from its investigation.

That material would include interviews with a woman who said she was paid to have sex with Gaetz when she was 17. Gaetz has denied the allegations.

Rep. Dean Phillips, a Democrat who previously served on the House Ethics Committee, said the situation with Gaetz — a former member of Congress nominated for one of the most powerful jobs in the U.S. government — is an argument in favor of the publication of the report.

“Not only is he gone [de la Cámara]. He has now been nominated for a very important position in this country, which is chief legal officer, so to speak. “It would seem strange and inconsistent with any ethical principles not to publish it,” Phillips said.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, who leads the narrow Republican majority in that body, has said he opposes the release of the still-unfinished report by the House Ethics Committee because Gaetz is no longer a member of Congress. But in the past some reports have been published about irregularities committed by other former members of the Legislature.

Ultimately, the Senate, which Republicans will control by at least a 52-48 margin next year, will decide whether to confirm Gaetz, who has never worked at the Justice Department or served as a prosecutor at any level. government.

But Gaetz, like other Trump nominees for senior government positions, has been a staunch supporter of the president and his Make America Great Again agenda.

Gaetz, however, angered some Republican lawmakers in the House of Representatives in 2023 by leading the effort to oust then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthywho was eventually replaced by Johnson.

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