House Speaker Mike Johnson said Friday that he will “strongly request” that the House Ethics Committee not release its report on sexual misconduct allegations against Matt Gaetz now that he is no longer a member of Congress.
Gaetz resigned from his House seat earlier this week because he has been nominated to serve as attorney general under the incoming Trump administration.
The committee had spent months looking into allegations that Gaetz may have “engaged in sexual misconduct and illicit drug use, accepted improper gifts, dispensed special privileges and favors to individuals with whom he had a personal relationship, and sought to obstruct government investigations of his conduct.” He has denied the allegations.
Ahead of Gaetz’s resignation, the committee reportedly planned to meet on Friday to vote on releasing a report on its investigation into allegations against Gaetz, but that meeting was canceled on Thursday, according to CNN.
“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 on Friday, adding that he plans to speak with the panel’s chairman, Representative Michael Guest.
“Let me say this. I believe it is very important to maintain the House’s traditions of not issuing ethics reports on people who are no longer (a) member of Congress,” Johnson said. “I think it would open a Pandora’s box. It’s a very important rule that should be maintained. It has been broken once or twice, it should not have been.”
“We are not in the business of investigating and publishing reports about people who are not part of this institution,” he said. “The House Ethics Committee’s jurisdiction is over sitting members of Congress. I think if you think about it, this will make sense to everybody.”
However, a spokesman for the Democrat-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee disagreed.
“There is longstanding precedent for releasing ethics investigation materials after a Member resigns, whether in the House or Senate,” Josh Sorbe, spokesperson for Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Dick Durbin, told CNN. “The now former Congressman shouldn’t be able to resign away an ethics investigation involving allegations of grave misconduct, especially when he will be nominated to be our country’s top law enforcement officer.”
“There is bipartisan support for the Senate Judiciary Committee having access to this information. Chair Durbin will continue pursuing it so members of the Committee can fulfill their constitutional obligation of advice and consent on this deeply problematic nominee,” Sorbe added.
One day earlier, the Senate committee asked House Ethics to preserve and “transmit all relevant documentation on Mr. Gaetz, including the report.”
In order to be confirmed as attorney general, Gaetz must be confirmed by the Senate, which will be controlled by Republicans in the upcoming Congress.
If he is confirmed, Gaetz will lead the department that was investigating him for sex trafficking as recently as last year.
Gaetz’s lawyers announced in February 2023 that they had been informed the DOJ concluded its years-long investigation into allegations that he was part of a scheme that led to the sex trafficking of a 17-year-old girl. Investigators ultimately closed the probe related to sex trafficking and obstruction of justice and declined to bring charges against him.
Still, the National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE) expressed “grave concerns” about President-elect Donald Trump’s decision to nominate Gaetz, writing in a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee that Gaetz’s alleged attendance at “sex parties” with underage girls needs to be investigated further.
The nonpartisan group is calling on the Senate to withhold confirmation hearings for Gaetz “until a full and transparent investigation is conducted into his possible role in the exploitation of young women and girls at the ‘sex parties’ he has admitted to attending.”
“These parties reportedly included young women, some allegedly minors, who were paid to participate in sex acts,” the letter reads. “It is further alleged that Mr. Gaetz did not merely attend these events but actively participated. Evidence suggests he sent payments through Venmo and Cash App to an associate, who then transferred funds to the women, labeling payments as ‘tuition.’”
“Some on Mr. Gaetz’s team argued that the prostitution fell outside U.S. jurisdiction because it took place on yachts in international waters, an excuse that does not stand up to moral, and perhaps, legal scrutiny,” NCOSE adds.
The group has also called on the House Ethics Committee to release its report.
Sealed testimony from three witnesses in the sex scandal case involving Joel Greenberg, a Gaetz ally and local Florida official, placed Gaetz at a “sex party” in 2017 that included illegal drugs and a nude underaged girl, according to reporting from NOTUS. Gaetz’s team has dismissed the allegations.
“Congressman Gaetz has never participated in the activities reflected in the NOTUS reporting. If people said otherwise, they are either confused or lying. This particular reporter used to work at the Daily Beast liberal publication and predicted the congressman’s arrest in 2021. Apparently he had to find other work,” a Gaetz spokesperson told the Pensacola News Journal.
Greenberg, for his part, was sentenced to eleven years in prison in 2022 after he took a plea deal and admitted to paying women and an underage girl to have sex with him and other unidentified men.