Top Democrat On House Ethics Committee Says Gaetz Report Should Be Made Public
Rep. Susan Wild, the top Democrat on the House Ethics Committee, said the panel’s report on former Rep. Matt Gaetz should be made public, seeming to discount claims that doing so would be an unusual step.
President-elect Donald Trump tapped Gaetz to become the next attorney general last week, an immediately controversial choice considering the Justice Department investigated him on allegations of sex trafficking and House lawmakers had been looking into claims of sexual misconduct and drug use. The House panel was set to vote on releasing its findings last week, but after Trump announced he would nominate the Florida Republican, Gaetz resigned from Congress, effectively shuttering the investigation.
Senators from both parties have called for the findings to be released anyway as they prepare for confirmation hearings on Trump’s nominees.
“It should certainly be released to the Senate, and I think it should be released to the public, as we have done with many other investigative reports in the past,” Wild, the Pennsylvania Democrat, told reporters on Monday, according to a report in Politico.
Rep. Michael Guest (R-Miss.) also told Politico that he would not bow to pressure from House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), who has called for the report to stay private. Johnson told The New York Times on Monday he was concerned that doing so would open “the Pandora’s box of saying that the House Ethics Committee, with its vast resources and unlimited power, effectively, could investigate private citizens and release reports about them.”
“I appreciate Mike reaching out,” Guest told Politico after a phone call with the speaker. “I don’t see it having an impact on what we as a committee ultimately decide.”
The ethics committee is set to meet on Wednesday to discuss how to handle the report, and it could vote to release its findings. But the panel is split 5-5 between Republicans and Democrats, and if there is a tie vote, the decision will defer to the Republicans.
Wild, who recently lost her reelection bid, also told reporters on Monday that she would wait to see how the panel acted before taking any further action.
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Her office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the report or her plans should her colleagues vote to keep it from becoming public.
