The House Ethics Committee is scheduled to meet this afternoon to decide the fate of its long-awaited report on former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), marking the biggest moment for the bipartisan panel in years.
Gaetz’s sudden resignation after his nomination to lead the Justice Department has thrust the secretive panel into the spotlight. The Ethics Committee is wrestling with whether to release the report publicly.
That decision is largely in the hands of the five Republicans on the evenly divided panel. They’re led by Ethics Committee Chair Michael Guest (R-Miss.), who has been publicly targeted by Gaetz during the long-running probe. Guest and the other Ethics Committee Republicans — Reps. David Joyce (Ohio), John Rutherford (Fla.), Andrew Garbarino (N.Y.) and Michelle Fischbach (Minn.) — have been under intense pressure from Speaker Mike Johnson to keep the report under wraps.
The panel has been investigating Gaetz on and off since 2021 over allegations of sexual misconduct and illicit drug use. Gaetz denies any wrongdoing. The Justice Department declined last year to charge Gaetz following its criminal investigation into the allegations. The Ethics panel conducted its own extensive probe, issuing more than 25 subpoenas and interviewing a number of witnesses.
It’s uncertain whether there will be a straight up or down vote on releasing the report. It would take just one Republican to cross party lines and vote to release the report, although that’s very unlikely to happen. Democrats are united in calling for its release.
And then there’s the “nuclear option” of a Democrat on the Ethics Committee just leaking the report or trying to enter it into the Congressional Record, moves that could jeopardize the entire future of the panel. In other words, the stakes couldn’t be higher here.
The Ethics Committee is the House’s only real internal policing mechanism. The panel’s investigative findings on former Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) are what ultimately led to his expulsion after several failed attempts to oust him prior to the committee’s report.
It’s worth noting that many of the most damaging details from the Gaetz investigation have already been reported publicly, and it didn’t impact his political standing. Gaetz got reelected twice since Ethics began its probe. Gaetz also blamed former Speaker Kevin McCarthy for the investigation, saying it would haven’t happened without the California Republican’s intervention.
Yet having those allegations laid out in detail from his now former Republican colleagues would be a far more searing finding for Gaetz.
