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WASHINGTON (CN) — The House Committee on Ethics is facing growing pressure this week to retain and eventually release the results of its probe into former Florida Representative Matt Gaetz, after President-elect Donald Trump named the bombastic lawmaker as the next attorney general.
Trump’s move to appoint Gaetz as the Justice Department’s top attorney sent shockwaves across Capitol Hill, even among Senate Republicans, who come January will be in charge of the chamber tasked with confirming the new administration’s cabinet picks.
And some senior GOP lawmakers have signaled that they are not opposed to bringing the former lawmaker’s ethics investigation to light as they consider his nomination.
Following his appointment as attorney general, Gaetz almost immediately submitted his resignation from Congress. The move was formalized Thursday, as his resignation letter was read into the congressional record.
The timing of the former congressman’s departure, though, raised questions. Punchbowl News reported Wednesday that the House Ethics Committee — which has for months investigated Gaetz over allegations that he had sex with a minor and used illicit drugs — was preparing to release a report on its findings.
With Gaetz no longer in Congress, lawmakers on the ethics panel are limited in their enforcement actions based on the results of their probe. But lawmakers and legal advocates have urged the committee to release its findings regardless, arguing that such information could be valuable as the Senate considers his confirmation to lead the Justice Department.
“The sequence and timing of Mr. Gaetz’s resignation from the House raises serious questions about the contents of the House Ethics Committee report,” Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin said in a statement Thursday. “We cannot allow this valuable information from a bipartisan investigation to be hidden from the American people. Make no mistake: this information could be relevant to the question of Mr. Gaetz’s confirmation as the next Attorney General of the United States and our constitutional responsibility of advice and consent.”
Even Texas Senator John Cornyn, a top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, signaled Thursday that he would support the release of the ethics committee’s report on the ex-congressman.
“I don’t see that any relevant information should be withheld,” he told reporters outside the Senate chamber, adding that it was in President-elect Trump’s best interest that he “not be surprised.”
“As you know, around here, the facts will come out,” Cornyn said. “We need to be fully informed of what the facts are, so we’ll get to the bottom of it one way or the other.”
The longtime Texas lawmaker did not preclude the possibility that the Senate Judiciary Committee could take action to request the report or relevant information from House lawmakers, though it’s unclear how such an action would take shape.
The House ethics panel’s probe stems from a similar Justice Department investigation into Gaetz. The agency in 2022 examined his relationship with Joel Greenberg, former tax collector for Seminole County, Florida, who was sentenced to 11 years in prison for underage sex trafficking. The Justice Department ultimately did not bring charges against Gaetz.
John Clune, an attorney who represented the woman accusing Gaetz of having sex with her when she was a minor, wrote in a Thursday post on X, formerly Twitter, that the former Florida lawmaker’s nomination as attorney general was a “perverse development.”
“We would support the House Ethics Committee immediately releasing their report,” Clune wrote. “She was a high school student and there were witnesses.”
Donald Sherman, chief counsel for legal advocacy group Citizens for Responsible Ethics in Washington, said in a statement that the circumstances of Gaetz’s resignation demand the release of the House ethics panel’s probe.
“The allegations against Gaetz under investigation by the Ethics Committee would represent a significant breach of public trust,” said Sherman. “The public has a right to know what the committee’s investigation turned up, especially given Gaetz’s resignation in a potential attempt to block the release.”
As of Thursday afternoon, the contents of the House Ethics Committee’s report had yet to be made public.
Gaetz’s appointment as attorney general makes him the latest Trump loyalist to score a coveted spot in the White House cabinet. The president-elect this week named Fox News host Pete Hegseth as the next secretary of defense and tapped South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem to lead the Department of Homeland Security. Trump on Wednesday also formally appointed Florida Senator Marco Rubio as the next secretary of state.
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