Ethics Committee deadlocks on releasing Matt Gaetz sex, drug probe report

The bipartisan House Ethics Committee deadlocked Wednesday on whether to release a report on its investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct and other wrongdoing by former Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz.

The outcome of the vote means that the report on Gaetz, who is President-elect Donald Trump's pick to be the next U.S. attorney general, will not be released for the time being.

Ethics Chair Michael Guest, R-Miss., told reporters after the closed-door meeting on Capitol Hill, "There has been no agreement to release the report."

But Rep. Susan Wild of Pennsylvania, the panel's ranking Democrat, pushed back on that characterization.

"The chairman has essentially suggested that there was agreement of the members of the committee, which there most definitely was not," she said.

She stressed that the vote in the 10-member committee, which is evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats, fell along partisan lines.

"There was no consensus on this issue," Wild said.

She noted that the panel did agree to reconvene on Dec. 5 to "further consider this matter."

When asked if she agreed with Guest's prior remark that the panel's report is unfinished, Wild paused before saying, "I really don't care to comment on the status of the report, except to say that we were in a position to vote today."

The ethics probe centered on whether Gaetz engaged in sexual misconduct or illicit drug use, as well as whether he accepted improper gifts, gave special favors to personal contacts or sought to obstruct government investigations of his conduct.

The committee had paused its probe in May 2023 at the request of the Department of Justice, which was conducting its own investigation into allegations that Gaetz sex-trafficked a minor girl.

The DOJ ended that probe without filing charges. The committee reauthorized its investigation in May 2023.

Gaetz has denied all wrongdoing. In September he said he would no longer voluntarily participate in the ethics probe, while revealing that the committee had asked him whether he ever "engaged in sexual activity with any individual under 18."

"The answer to this question is unequivocally NO," he wrote in reply.

The panel was investigating Gaetz until he resigned from Congress last week, shortly after Trump tapped him to become the nation's top law enforcement officer.

Gaetz's resignation removes him from the committee's jurisdiction, Guest said.

Trump's decision to select Gaetz, whose time in Congress was filled with controversial remarks and feuds with other lawmakers, for a high-level Cabinet role has spurred intense pushback from Democrats and surprise from Republicans.

Of all the people Trump has picked to join his next administration, Gaetz is viewed as the least likely to be confirmed by the Senate. The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that there are far more Senate Republicans opposed to Gaetz's nomination than the three GOP votes he can afford to lose in the next Congress.

Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee urged the FBI earlier Wednesday to turn over all the evidence it had gathered from its investigation into Gaetz.

"The Senate has a constitutional duty to provide advice and consent on presidential nominees, and it is crucial that we review all the information necessary to fulfill this duty as we consider Mr. Gaetz's nomination," reads the letter from Chairman Dick Durbin, D-Il., and nine other Democrats.