The House Ethics Committee is scrapping a planned Friday meeting as pressure builds for the oversight panel to release a report on attorney general nominee Matt Gaetz’s alleged sexual misconduct and illicit drug use.
Per Politico, the Friday closed-door meeting was abruptly canceled the day before, as Democrats on Capitol Hill seek to make a potentially damning report public.
The release of the House Ethics report has been in doubt since former Rep. Gaetz, R-Fla., resigned on Wednesday, hours after Donald Trump nominated him to lead the Department of Justice and two days before the committee was reportedly slated to release it.
Though its full scope is unknown, the inquiry into Gaetz’s alleged misconduct included sworn testimony from a woman who says Gaetz slept with her when she was 17, ABC News reported, as well as an investigation into Gaetz’s presence at a drug-laden party in Florida in 2017, among a laundry list of other accusations.
Gaetz denied the then-17-year-old’s account in a statement to ABC, calling it “invented” and “false testimony to Congress.”
“This false smear following a three-year criminal investigation should be viewed with great skepticism,” he said.
The far-right ex-Freedom Caucus member has attempted to topple the investigation before, former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy alleged in April. McCarthy claimed Gaetz moved to end his speakership because he “wanted me to stop an ethics complaint because he slept with a 17-year-old.” McCarthy said on Thursday that he didn’t believe Gaetz would be confirmed in the GOP-led Senate.
Indeed, some in that chamber want to know more about Gaetz’s potential misconduct before clearing him to be the nation’s top investigator.
Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said on Thursday that the chamber should “absolutely” see the full report and its findings before voting on Gaetz. In a letter sent the same day, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin, D-Ill., demanded the committee turn over the letter to the Senate.
It's unclear whether the evenly-split-by-party committee still has the authority to release the report with Gaetz gone, Chairman Michael Guest, R-Miss., has claimed. Still, Democrats are searching for a route to release the report whether Republican committee members want to or not, Axios reported.
