House Ethics Committee to meet with vote on releasing Gaetz report looming

The House Ethics Committee is expected to meet Thursday after the panel failed to come to an agreement last month on whether to release its report about former Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla.

The report could still be made public, however, even if history repeats itself. Rep. Sean Casten, D-Ill., moved to force a vote on releasing the report via a measure known as a "privileged resolution" Tuesday.

Designating a resolution "privileged" gives House leaders two legislative days to consider it, putting that deadline on Thursday.

The House Ethics Committee has been conducting a years-long investigation into accusations against Gaetz that involve sex with a minor and illicit drug use.

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Gaetz has consistently denied any wrongdoing, and a parallel federal investigation into the Florida congressman ended without him being charged.

The House Ethics Committee’s investigation came to an abrupt halt last month after he resigned from Congress, hours after President-elect Trump tapped him to be his attorney general.

Gaetz dropped out of consideration amid quiet but steady GOP opposition, but the committee lost jurisdiction over the probe when Gaetz left the House of Representatives.

His resignation came just before the committee was expected to meet to consider releasing the report.

That meeting wound up taking place roughly a week later and ended on a tense note.

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Chairman Michael Guest, R-Miss., told reporters there was no agreement on releasing the report, while the remainder of the normally secretive committee said little to journalists crowded outside the meeting room.

His comments prompted Rep. Susan Wild, D-Pa., the top Democrat on the committee, to return and criticize Guest for discussing the meeting at all.

"We just concluded a two-hour meeting of the ethics committee, and it was not my intention to make any comment. I walked out of this committee without making one and walked back to my office," Wild began. 

"We had agreed that we were not going to discuss what had transpired at the meeting. But it has come to my attention that the chairman has since betrayed the process by disclosing our deliberations within moments after walking out of the committee, and he has implied that there was an agreement of the committee not to disclose the report."

She called it "untrue to the extent that that suggests that the committee was in agreement or that we had a consensus on that."

But with Gaetz now out of the running for attorney general, there is likely not as much pressure on Republicans to consent to releasing the report. 

A significant number of GOP lawmakers who suggested they would be open to it argued it was in the public’s best interest to see the report if Gaetz were to lead the Department of Justice, a factor no longer in play.