House Repub­li­cans vote down two attempts to release Gaetz ethics report

Posted in Economy  •  Published by
House Republicans vote down two attempts to release Gaetz ethics report

The House vot­ed along par­ty lines to table two res­o­lu­tions that would com­pel the House Ethics Com­mit­tee to release the find­ings of its years­long inves­ti­ga­tion into for­mer Rep. Matt Gaetz (R‑FL), pos­si­bly bring­ing an end to out­side efforts to force the pan­el to act.

The House shot down two sep­a­rate res­o­lu­tions on Thurs­day seek­ing to pub­lish the committee’s find­ings into whether Gaetz com­mit­ted sex­u­al mis­con­duct and illic­it drug use while in office, instead vot­ing to refer the mea­sure to the Ethics Com­mit­tee. The votes indi­cate the report will like­ly nev­er see the light of day as the Ethics Com­mit­tee has remained dead­locked on whether to pub­lish the report. 

Two Democ­rats intro­duced priv­i­leged res­o­lu­tions this week to release the Gaetz ethics report, forc­ing law­mak­ers to go on the record about whether the find­ings should be made avail­able to the pub­lic. 

One res­o­lu­tion, filed by Rep. Sean Cas­ten (D‑IL), sought to com­pel the Ethics Com­mit­tee to release the lat­est draft of its report detail­ing the alle­ga­tions into Gaetz while the oth­er res­o­lu­tion, filed by Rep. Steve Cohen (D‑TN), would direct the com­mit­tee to “pre­serve and release records” of the committee’s review as well as release the full report. Both res­o­lu­tions would also com­pel the pan­el to issue any rec­om­men­da­tions or pro­posed dis­ci­pli­nary actions. 

House GOP lead­ers moved to table the res­o­lu­tion, dis­miss­ing it from con­sid­er­a­tion before it could be brought up for a final vote. Near­ly all Repub­li­cans fell behind par­ty lead­er­ship to defer the mea­sure, except for Rep. Tom McClin­tock (R‑CA), who vot­ed against both.

The res­o­lu­tions come as the Ethics Com­mit­tee has met repeat­ed­ly to delib­er­ate on the sub­ject, although the bipar­ti­san pan­el has failed to come to an agree­ment. Because of the panel’s com­po­si­tion of five Repub­li­cans and five Democ­rats, any deci­sion must have bipar­ti­san sup­port in order to be approved.

Hours before the vote, the Ethics Com­mit­tee met behind closed doors to delib­er­ate on the report. How­ev­er, no deci­sion was made and the pan­el said it would con­tin­ue dis­cus­sions.

The pan­el pre­vi­ous­ly met before the Thanks­giv­ing hol­i­day, when it failed to come to an agree­ment on whether to release the report. That meet­ing end­ed in a some­what con­tentious mat­ter as Wild dis­put­ed Com­mit­tee Chair­man Michael Guest’s (R‑TN) char­ac­ter­i­za­tion of the con­ver­sa­tion.

“[Guest] has implied that there was an agree­ment of the com­mit­tee not to dis­close the report,” Wild told reporters after the Nov. 20 meet­ing. “We often vote unan­i­mous­ly. That did not hap­pen in today’s vote, and I do not want the Amer­i­can pub­lic or any­one else to think Mr. Guest’s char­ac­ter­i­za­tion of what tran­spired today would be some sort of indi­ca­tion that the com­mit­tee had … con­sen­sus on this issue not to release the report. That just would be inac­cu­rate.”

Wild then decid­ed not to attend the lat­est meet­ing on Thurs­day.

The com­mit­tee, which has been qui­et­ly inves­ti­gat­ing Gaetz for more than three years, has been under intense pres­sure to make its report pub­lic. That pres­sure came to a head last month when the Flori­da Repub­li­can resigned on Nov. 13 just hours after Pres­i­dent-elect Don­ald Trump nom­i­nat­ed him to be his attor­ney gen­er­al. 

Gaetz lat­er with­drew his name from con­sid­er­a­tion, acknowl­edg­ing he like­ly did not have enough sup­port in the Sen­ate to approve his nom­i­na­tion. But even after he with­drew, Demo­c­ra­t­ic law­mak­ers did not relin­quish their efforts to get the report pub­lished. 

Repub­li­cans have sought to keep the report under wraps, argu­ing it would be unprece­dent­ed to pub­lish an ethics report about a law­mak­er who has already left office. How­ev­er, in his updat­ed res­o­lu­tion, Cas­ten list­ed four exam­ples of for­mer law­mak­ers whose ethics inves­ti­ga­tions were released even after they resigned.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

Those exam­ples include for­mer Reps. Bill Bon­er in 1987, Don Lukens in 1990, Mark Foley in 2006, and Eric Mas­sa in 2011. The lat­ter three inves­ti­ga­tions all involved sex­u­al mis­con­duct alle­ga­tions, sim­i­lar to Gaetz’s inquiry.

Gaetz has con­tin­ued to deny all wrong­do­ing in the case. The Jus­tice Depart­ment also inves­ti­gat­ed alle­ga­tions of sex traf­fick­ing but did not bring charges.