On Wednesday, the House Ethics Committee announced that it will release its inquiry into former Republican congressman Matt Gaetz after previously deadlocking on whether or not the report should be made public.
The report will be released to the public before the end of the current congressional session, after all other business is completed. That means it could be released as soon as the end of this week.
The House Ethics Committee is divided evenly among Republican and Democratic lawmakers, with a 5-5 split. Two Republicans joined with Democrats to vote in favor of making the report public.
The vote, which was done in secret on December 5, followed a full House vote against releasing the report after the committee failed to come to a decision on its own last month.
The report’s contents were initially important to the Senate, which was set to vote on whether Gaetz should be Attorney General of the United States after president-elect Donald Trump nominated him to the position last month.Shortly after being picked by Trump, however, Gaetz resigned from his position in Congress, resulting in the House Ethics Committee not releasing the report that same week, as had been scheduled.
Generally, the House Ethics Committee doesn’t release reports on members of Congress after they resign from office, though it is not unprecedented for them to do so. Democrats in the Senate, joined by a few Republicans, had demanded to see the findings of their inquiry after Gaetz resigned.
When it became clear that he was not going to be able to court enough Republican senators to approve of him to lead the Justice Department, Gaetz withdrew his nomination in late November.
In June, the House Ethics Committee had announced that it was investigating Gaetz over allegations of illicit drug use, sharing inappropriate images on the House floor with other lawmakers, using campaign funds for personal matters, making payments for sex and having sexual contact with a minor.
In response to the committee’s announcement that it would be releasing the ethics report, Gaetz tried to defend his behavior, claiming he “probably partied, womanized, drank and smoke” too much in his “single days,” but that he did nothing illegal, denying any sexual history with someone under the age of 18.
The Justice Department had previously investigated Gaetz over these allegations and others (including use of campaign funds for personal reasons) but declined to issue charges against him due to worries that some witnesses wouldn’t be seen as credible by a jury.
The release of the ethics report on Gaetz could damage his political reputation, derailing, for example, potential plans to run for governor of Florida or even a future appointment to another executive branch position by Trump.
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