Multiple Republican lawmakers opposed the release of the results of an ethics investigation into former Republican Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, according to a House Ethics Committee report released Monday.
Republican members of the House Ethics Committee, led by Mississippi Rep. Michael Guest, chairman of the committee, voiced opposition to the bill. report He opposed the release of the committee’s findings on the former Florida congressman.
“Congressman Gaetz has resigned from Congress, withdrawn from consideration for the next administration, and declared that he will not seek a seat in the 119th Congress,” the opposition members, including Gaetz, said in their report. . “The decision to release the report after his resignation breaks with the commission’s longstanding practices, exposes the commission to unwarranted criticism, and refutes an attempt to weaponize the commission’s process. Some people will see it. ”
“We believe that operating beyond the jurisdiction established by House rules and committee standards, especially when making public disclosures, is a dangerous deviation with potentially devastating consequences.” Opposing MPs added:
Opposition members did not specifically dispute the report’s claims.
The report said Gaetz paid sexual favors and illegal drugs to more than 10 women, including a 17-year-old girl, between 2017 and 2020.
The committee has identified at least 20 incidents in which the former Florida congressman allegedly paid women for sex or illegal drugs between 2017 and 2020 during the Ethics Committee’s long-running investigation into Gates. was identified. The former Florida congressman allegedly paid more than $60,000 to one of the women the committee determined may have had a long-term relationship with the former congressman.
Monday’s release of the ethics report came amid initial hesitation from lawmakers to release the report to Gates, who was nominated by President-elect Donald Trump to be attorney general. The group, led by retiring Democratic congresswoman Susan Wilde, comes after Gaetz decided to withdraw his nomination and resigned from the House after failing to secure support from key Republican senators. Democratic members of the committee decided to release the report. (Related: CNN’s Scott Jennings says Matt Gaetz’s nomination was a “bridge too far” given the “rocky relationship on the hill”)
Two Republicans on the Ethics Committee voted with Democrats to release the report, CBS News reported.
“The Committee finds that Congressman Gaetz is subject to the House Rules, state and federal laws, and other standards of conduct that prohibit prostitution, statutory rape, illegal drug use, accepting impermissible gifts, providing special favors or privileges, and obstructing.” “We conclude that there is substantial evidence that Congress violated the law,” the report’s authors wrote.
“Even assuming that the payments to specific women did not violate prostitution laws, the committee found that Congressman Gaetz paid tens of thousands of dollars to other women with whom he had the common understanding that he would be paid for sex. “We found evidence that the amount was spent,” the report added.
The report also alleges that Gaetz “knowingly and knowingly attempted to obstruct and obstruct the Commission’s investigation into his conduct.”
The committee did not find sufficient evidence to suggest that the former Florida lawmaker violated federal sex trafficking laws. It is notable that the Biden Justice Department did not indict Gaetz after investigating the former Florida congressman in a sex trafficking investigation.
Mr. Gates rejected the report’s findings, particularly the commission’s assertion that Mr. Gates violated Florida’s statutory rape law by paying a 17-year-old girl $400 in exchange for sex. The girl did not tell Gates her age, and the former Florida congressman did not ask, the report said.
“When I was single, I often sent money to women I dated, some of whom asked me to do so even though I had never dated them,” Gaetz wrote on X on December 18. “I have never had sexual contact with anyone under the age of 18. My claims would not stand up in court. That is why such claims were not made in court.”
The Biden/Garland Department of Justice spent years investigating allegations that I committed various crimes.
I was not charged with any crime and was completely innocent. It’s not a campaign finance violation. And the people investigating me hated me.
And the very “witnesses” that the Justice Department deemed unreliable were…
— Matt Gaetz (@mattgaetz) December 18, 2024
“It’s not a crime, but I’m ashamed that I probably partied more than I should have, womanized, drank and smoked early in my life,” Gates added. “I’m living a different life now.”
The former Florida congressman will join the prime-time lineup of the conservative One America News Network in January. Gates will host a one-hour show called “The Matt Gates Show” every weekday at 9 p.m. EST, OAN announced on Dec. 10.
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