Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy claimed that Rep. Matt Gaetz’s (R-FL) decision to oust him in October was tied to a House Ethics Committee investigation into the Floridian.
McCarthy told House Republicans on Sunday not to be afraid of the motion to vacate tactic after Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) filed the motion last week, threatening Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA). Gaetz led the first successful motion to vacate in U.S. history, which, according to McCarthy, was largely motivated by personal animus.
“The one advice I would give to the conference and to the speaker is: Do not be fearful of a motion to vacate,” McCarthy said on CBS. “I do not think they could do it again. That was surely based on Matt Gaetz trying to stop an ethics complaint. It was purely Matt coming to me trying [to get] me to do something illegal to stop the Ethics Committee from moving forward in an investigation that was started long before I became a speaker.”
McCarthy was referring to a House ethics investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct by Gaetz, including allegations that Gaetz slept with a minor. The House investigation was opened in 2021 but was put on hold pending a federal investigation by the Justice Department.
The investigation resumed in 2023 when the Justice Department didn’t bring any charges against Gaetz, who has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.
McCarthy claimed he was not aware of when the investigation was reopened but that Gaetz had asked him to interfere with the investigation in May 2023. When it opened in 2021, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) was speaker.
“Apparently, he got a letter from ethics asking for documents,” McCarthy told NBC News. “I told him, ‘I don’t know anything about this.’ I told him, ‘You gotta talk to [Ethics Committee Chairman Michael] Guest.’ What Gaetz was always trying to do was leverage me to try to do something in the Ethics Committee that I would not about his investigation. I never knew [the investigation] was going on. I’m not going to get in the middle of it. And they can do whatever they’re doing.”
Gaetz has not confirmed or rejected the ties between the House ethics investigation and his decision to call for McCarthy’s exit as speaker. But a friend of Gaetz shared a message with NBC News in which Gaetz made it clear that he does blame McCarthy for his problems.
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The congressman filed a motion to vacate McCarthy as speaker in October after McCarthy passed a controversial government spending bill to avoid a government shutdown. Seven of Gaetz’s allies voted in favor of McCarthy’s ousting, which was enough to get him removed in addition to all House Democrats voting against him as well, claiming he broke promises he made to the conference in order to get the deal passed.
Greene filed a similar motion to remove Johnson on Friday after he also avoided a shutdown with a $1.2 trillion spending bill. But Greene has not garnered the same support for her effort as Gaetz did, and some Democrats have even indicated they would help Johnson keep his job.