Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., talks with a staffer before the start of the House Armed Services Committee hearing on “An Update on Afghanistan in Washington on Wednesday, May 12, 2021.
Caroline Brehman | CQ-Roll Call, Inc. | Getty Images
The House Ethics Committee secretly voted to release a report on its investigation of sexual misconduct and illicit drug use allegations against former Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz, NBC News reported Wednesday.
The report could be released as soon as the end of this week, after the House casts its final votes of the current Congress and gavels out for the holidays, two sources familiar with the matter told NBC.
Gaetz lashed out at the panel’s decision, while once again denying that he has ever had sex with an underage girl.
“Any claim that I have would be destroyed in court – which is why no such claim was ever made in court,” he wrote in an X post.
He added, “It’s embarrassing, though not criminal, that I probably partied, womanized, drank and smoked more than I should have earlier in life. I live a different life now.”
The vote marks a major shift for the bipartisan ethics committee, which deadlocked last month on whether to release the report in light of Gaetz’s resignation from Congress.
Gaetz left the House after President-elect Donald Trump picked him to serve as U.S. attorney general. But Gaetz withdrew less than two weeks later as his bid was overshadowed by allegations of past sexual misconduct and other impropriety, all of which he has denied.
CNN first reported the ethics panel’s vote to release the Gaetz report. A spokeswoman for Ethics Chair Michael Guest, R-Miss., referred CNBC to a committee spokesperson who declined to comment. The ethics panel’s ranking Democrat, Rep. Susan Wild of Pennsylvania, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The House panel in May 2023 reopened its investigation of Gaetz, which was on pause while the Department of Justice conducted its own probe of sex trafficking allegations against the then-congressman.
The DOJ closed its probe without filing charges. The House panel’s reauthorized investigation was focused on whether Gaetz “engaged in sexual misconduct and illicit drug use, accepted improper gifts, dispensed special privileges and favors to individuals with whom he had a personal relationship, and sought to obstruct government investigations of his conduct.”
Gaetz, in his X post later Wednesday morning, railed against the vote.
“The Biden/Garland DOJ spent years reviewing allegations that I committed various crimes. I was charged with nothing: FULLY EXONERATED. Not even a campaign finance violation. And the people investigating me hated me,” he wrote.
The ethics panel “will reportedly post a report online that I have no opportunity to debate or rebut as a former member of the body,” Gaetz wrote.
The former congressman went on, “In my single days, I often sent funds to women I dated – even some I never dated but who asked.”
“I dated several of these women for years. I NEVER had sexual contact with someone under 18,” he wrote.
Once Gaetz resigned from the House, Republicans, including Guest, said that he was effectively out of the committee’s jurisdiction.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., had urged the panel not to release its report, arguing that it would set a “terrible precedent” to share its findings on a person who is no longer part of Congress.
While rare, the Ethics Committee in the past has released reports about members of Congress after they have resigned.
It did so in 1987, releasing a report centered on campaign misconduct allegations against former Rep. Bill Boner, D-Tenn. In 2006, the committee released a report related to messages that former Rep. Mark Foley, D-Fla., sent to congressional pages.