Can they do this? Why the House Ethics Committee released its report on Matt Gaetz

There was no guarantee that a long-awaited House Ethics Committee report on former Rep. Matt Gaetz would see the light of day, especially after the Florida Republican lawmaker abruptly left his congressional post last month .

But on Monday, the public was able to read and learn the details of the allegations that played a role in Gaetz’s disqualification from the Senate confirmation process to become President-elect Donald Trump’s attorney general.

In releasing the report, the commission — which is evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats — made Gaetz one of the few former members whose ethics committee investigation was made public after they resigned from office.

The committee said it found “substantial evidence” that Gaetz engaged in “prostitution, rape, illegal drug use” and obstruction of Congress, including paying for sex with a 17-year-old, although he did not know her age and did not ask her age at the time. time.

While Gaetz has been dogged by allegations of sexual misconduct in the past, the House Ethics Committee’s investigation into his conduct was thrust into the spotlight when Trump named him attorney general in the new administration.

Senators demanded more information about the allegations against Gaetz as they prepared to consider his nomination, with some Republican senators demanding access to the report after some details had been leaked to the press. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said he would “strongly request” the committee keep this private.

The panel met to consider whether to release the report and reached an impasse in November. Gaetz withdrew shortly afterward. In a second vote earlier this month, two Republicans quietly joined their Democratic colleagues in supporting his release.

“The Committee has generally not published its findings after losing jurisdiction in a case,” the report said. “However, there are a few instances where the Committee has determined that it is in the public interest to release its findings even after a Member of Congress has resigned. The Committee does not do this lightly.”

Here’s what you need to know about the committee’s decision to release the report.

What happened in the past?

It is extremely rare for the House Ethics Committee to release a report on a former member of Congress – so much so that resigning from Congress has long been seen as a way for members plagued by ethics questions to avoid public disclosure of their alleged wrongdoing.

“The fact that the reports are not being released is an incentive for members to withdraw,” said Norm Eisen, former co-counsel to Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee during President Trump’s first impeachment. “This therefore promotes a natural sanction whereby the offender is no longer in a position of public service.”

In only a few cases did the commission determine that the information was in the public interest even though the lawmaker was no longer serving in Congress.

For example, the committee issued a report in 1987, a few months after former Rep. Bill Boner, D-Tenn., resigned from Congress to become mayor of Nashville. The report said Boner took bribes and misused his campaign funds. In another case, the committee continued to investigate sexual harassment allegations against former Rep. Eric Massa, D-N.Y., who resigned in 2020, to determine whether other members covered up his conduct.

Why did the committee decide to publish the report?

Rep. Glenn Ivey, D-Md., is a member of the committee that voted to release the Gaetz report. He told USA TODAY it was important to release the document because “the public has a right to know these kinds of things.”

In cases where there was a “relatively minor incident,” the committee will choose not to release the report, Ivey said, adding, “It was anything but that.” »

It was also important to signal to other House members what is expected of them as a member of Congress, Ivey said.

“Our job as gatekeepers to Congress is to inform our colleagues when conduct crosses the line,” he said. “So that it gives them some guidance on how they should behave in the future.”

Others argued that the panel faced another problem: Much of the information in the report had already leaked, leaving the public to speculate without getting the full picture.

Gaetz and Trump “put these issues in the public eye” by appointing him attorney general, Eisen said. “They opened Pandora’s box, some details came out, so at this point it’s difficult to close Pandora’s box.”

What was the argument against its publication?

The ethics committee’s chairman, Rep. Michael Guest, R-Miss., wrote an addendum to the report explaining why several committee members voted against releasing the document.

Guest and other like-minded members of the Republican Party “do not dispute the committee’s findings,” he wrote, but “we are deeply opposed” to the decision to deviate from “well-established norms” and to issue a report on someone who no longer serves. in the House.

This is “extremely rare,” Guest argued, and can be seen as an attempt to “weaponize” the committee’s investigative process. The release of the report, he added, was “a dangerous departure with potentially catastrophic consequences.”

What does Matt Gaetz say?

Gaetz proclaimed his innocence and attacked the credibility of the ethics committee. On Monday, he published a series of articles on X containing excerpts of testimony that he said refute the committee’s findings.

“Giving money to someone you are dating – who they didn’t ask for – and who is not “charged” for sex is now prostitution?!?” he wrote. “There’s a reason they did this to me in a Christmas Eve report and not in some random courtroom where I could present evidence and challenge witnesses.”

The former Republican lawmaker from Florida made a last-minute attempt in federal court Monday to block the release of the committee’s findings, saying the panel was outside his jurisdiction. But while Gaetz requested a temporary restraining order Monday morning to prevent the report’s release, the judge in the case asked Gaetz an hour later to explain why the case was still current once that the documents were public.

On Monday evening, Gaetz’s lawyers filed a brief acknowledging that he “suffered no irreversible and irreparable harm” and agree with the judge that immediate action is no longer relevant.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Why the House Ethics Committee released its report on Matt Gaetz