Republicans in both chambers are clamoring for the House Ethics Committee to release the results of an investigation against now former Rep. Matt Gaetz, but Speaker Mike Johnson said Friday he would “strongly request” that the committee not do so.
Gaetz was nominated Wednesday to be President-elect Donald Trump’s attorney general — sending shockwaves throughout the Capitol. The congressman had been under an ethics investigation for allegations that he sex trafficked a minor (he had previously been the subject of a DOJ investigation but was not charged) Hours after Trump announced the nomination and just days before the Ethics Committee was reportedly going to vote on releasing the report, Gaetz resigned from the House.
Plenty of lawmakers told reporters this week that they wanted to see the report’s findings, especially now that the Senate will need to vote on Gaetz. But Johnson is emphatic that it would be a “breach of protocol” for the committee to release it now that Gaetz isn’t in office. Once a member leaves, the committee no longer has jurisdiction over them.
“I’m going to strongly request that the Ethics Committee not issue the report because that is not the way we do things in the House, and I think that would be a terrible precedent to set,” Johnson told reporters Friday.
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When NOTUS asked Johnson on Friday whether he wanted to know if Gaetz had had sex with a minor or not, the Speaker “rolled his eyes and didn’t answer the question.”
“I believe it is very important to maintain the House’s tradition of not issuing ethics reports on people who are no longer members of Congress,” Johnson said. “I think it would open a Pandora’s box.”
As NOTUS reported on Thursday, lawmakers in both parties were anxious to see the report, especially given Gaetz’s attorney general nomination.
“If he’s going to stand any chance of being our attorney general, then we need to know what we know,” Rep. John Duarte said. “We cannot have an attorney general who’s got an ethics report hanging out there over his head. That’s got to become public, or he’s going to be compromised as attorney general.”
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Helen Huiskes is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow. Reese Gorman is a reporter at NOTUS.
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