House Ethics Committee says no agreement reached on releasing Matt Gaetz report

The House Ethics Committee has not reached an agreement to release its report on former Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., the panel’s chairman told reporters on Wednesday.

The bipartisan panel met behind closed doors for over two hours. Chairman Michael Guest, R-Miss., the last to leave the room, said, "There was not an agreement by the committee to release the report."

Other members who left said little, with Rep. Glenn Ivey, D-Md., telling reporters that deliberations were ongoing but he "can’t discuss" them.

Things took a dramatic turn when Rep. Susan Wild, D-Pa., the top Democrat on the committee, unleashed on Guest for commenting to reporters earlier – despite it being exceedingly rare for a member of the normally insular panel to attack another.

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"We just concluded a two-hour meeting of the ethics committee, and it was not my intention to make any comment. I walked out of this committee without making one and walked back to my office," Wild began. 

"We had agreed that we were not going to discuss what had transpired at the meeting. But it has come to my attention that the Chairman has since betrayed the process by disclosing our deliberations within moments after walking out of the committee, and he has implied that there was an agreement of the committee not to disclose the report."

She called it "untrue to the extent that that suggests that the committee was in agreement, or that we had a consensus on that."

"I'd say that a vote was taken. As many of you know, this committee is evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans, five Dems, five Republicans, which means that in order to affirmatively move something forward, somebody has to cross party lines and vote with the other side – which happens a lot, by the way, and we often vote unanimously. That did not happen in today's vote," Wild said.

The Wednesday meeting comes the same day that Gaetz is visiting Senate offices on Capitol Hill to kick off the confirmation process to lead the Department of Justice (DOJ).

The House Ethics Committee's inquiry into Gaetz abruptly ended last week when he resigned from Congress hours after being named President-elect Trump's nominee for attorney general.

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"Matt will end Weaponized Government, protect our Borders, dismantle Criminal Organizations and restore Americans’ badly-shattered Faith and Confidence in the Justice Department," Trump said in his announcement last Wednesday.

The probe began in 2021 and stems from accusations of illicit drug use and sex with a minor. 

The DOJ, which Gaetz has been tapped to lead, ultimately did not press charges. Gaetz himself has consistently denied all wrongdoing.

But pressure has been building on the normally secretive ethics panel to release its report, with senators who will be key to Gaetz getting the attorney general role expressing interest in seeing it before making their judgments.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., notably, has said he does not believe the report should be released.

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"The Speaker of the House is not involved with those things. I am reacting to media reports that a report is currently in some draft form and was going to be released on what is now a former member of the House," Johnson said Friday.

"I do not believe that that is an appropriate thing. It doesn't follow our rules and traditions and there is a reason for that. That would open up Pandora's box and I don't think that's a healthy thing for the institution, so that's my position."

Meanwhile, Rep. Sean Casten, D-Ill., announced he plans to introduce a privileged resolution to force a House vote on releasing the Gaetz report.

"The allegations against Matt Gaetz are serious. They are credible. The House Ethics Committee has spent years conducting a thorough investigation to get to the bottom of it," Casten said in a statement. "This information must be made available for the Senate to provide its constitutionally required advice and consent."