The House Ethics Committee released its long-awaited report on former Rep. Matt Gaetz on Monday, ending the committee's nearly three-and-a-half year investigation into the Florida Republican.
The 42-page report, which also includes several exhibits, found “substantial evidence” that Gates violated House rules, state and federal law, and, among other things, prostitution, It outlined charges including statutory rape and illegal drug use. Gates has denied any wrongdoing.
Here are five takeaways from the report.
Embarrassing blow to Gates
Most of the allegations in the Ethics Commission's report are not new, given that the Ethics Commission had made public the areas it was investigating.
But the vast and sordid details of the research are an embarrassing blow to Gates, who tried to keep the findings secret until his final hours.
The most bombshell accusation in the report is that Gaetz, then a 35-year-old one-term congressman, had sex twice with a then-17-year-old woman.
The woman, identified in the report as Victim A, told the commission that Gaetz had sex with her twice on July 15, 2017, while they were attending a party. The commission said it did not know whether Gaetz was aware of the girl's age.
The woman recalled receiving $400 from Gates that night.
The report also detailed Gaetz's alleged drug use, including cocaine, ecstasy and marijuana. It accused him of accepting inappropriate gifts in the form of transportation and lodging in connection with a 2018 trip to the Bahamas that involved sexual contact and drug use. He then claimed that even though the woman was not a voter, he “used his power to assist a woman with whom he had a sexual relationship to quickly obtain a passport.”
Republican leaders were unable to keep a lid on the report.
Republican leaders tried unsuccessfully to cover up the Gaetz report.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) asked the Ethics Committee not to release a report on Gates after he was nominated by President-elect Trump to be attorney general.
“I think this is a terrible violation of protocol and tradition and the spirit of the rule of law,” he told reporters at the time, adding that the prospect of publishing the findings was “a terrible precedent to set.” said.
He rose again to that position many times.
Rep. Michael Guest (R-Mississippi), chairman of the Ethics Committee, told reporters in response to a question from Gaetz after he was nominated for attorney general that he had “no reservations about publishing unfinished work. “
Guest also said that Gates' decision to withdraw his name from nominations for the top Justice Department position “put an end to the debate over whether the Ethics Committee should proceed with this matter.” It should be possible,” he said.
But in the end, Johnson and Guest lost that battle, with at least one Republican for every Democrat voting to release the report.
An evenly divided committee requires a majority vote to publish a report.
Representatives Andrew Garbarino (R-Ohio) and Dave Joyce (R-Ohio) voted in favor of releasing the findings, sources confirmed to The Hill. AxiosWe were the first to report those votes.
The committee released its report on December 23, the day before Christmas Eve, while both houses of Congress were in session.
However, the discovery still attracted major headlines, and Guest, in a statement on behalf of those opposed to publication, harshly criticized the ultimate decision to publish the collection of works.
“While we do not dispute the Commission's findings, the majority voted in favor of publishing a report on individuals who departed from the Commission's established standards and are no longer under the Commission's jurisdiction. “The committee has not taken such action since 2006,” Guest said in a statement included in the final report.
Does the release of the Gaetz report change precedent?
The Ethics Committee's decision to release its report against Gates, a former congressman, was unusual.
This raises questions about what precedent the committee has as it is expected to continue investigating allegations of misconduct in Congress.
As Mr. Guest pointed out, the last time the committee released a report on a former member was in 2006, when the committee focused on the conduct of House Republicans, former Rep. Mark Foley (R-Rep.). announced the results of a survey on the state of Florida. leaders.
The committee did something similar in 1987, releasing a report against former Rep. William Bonner (D-Tenn.) after he resigned from the House.
Despite this past example, several Republican lawmakers who opposed the release of Gaetz's findings argued that such a step would set a new and dangerous precedent. Mr. Guest made that claim in a statement in the report.
“We believe that operating outside the jurisdiction established by House rules and committee standards, especially when disclosing information, is a dangerous deviation with potentially devastating consequences.” said Mr. Guest.
Gates' future is in doubt
The release of the ethics report also raises questions about what the future holds for Gates now that the sordid allegations, evidence and details have been made public.
Gates resigned from the House of Representatives after President Trump nominated him for attorney general, but he was later removed from consideration amid growing opposition from Republicans. It is likely that the contents of the ethics report undermined his bid and led to the same conclusion.
The former congressman then joined One America News as an anchor in January after announcing he would not take the oath of office in the elected 119th Congress, giving him a foothold to continue his involvement in politics this off-season. revealed that. of Capitol Hill.
But Gaetz has recently hinted at a future run for public office, an effort that could be complicated by the publication of the Ethics Commission's report.
The former congressman announced Sunday that he will run for the Senate seat held by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), who remains President Trump's secretary of state. Gaetz's name has also been floated as a possible candidate for Florida governorship in 2026, as Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis is term-limited.
If Gaetz were to run for public office in the future, he would likely be pursued for the evidence and allegations detailed in the Ethics Commission's report, potentially complicating his path to victory.
Rep. Glenn Ivey (D-Md.), a member of the committee, said the committee's work includes information that potential voters and employers would want to know before making a decision about Gaetz. said.
“We don't know if he will run for office again, but here's the information that voters, employers and others want to know before making any decisions about him, whether he's in public life or in his private life.” ,” Ivey told The Hill in a phone interview after the report was released.
Gates denies wrongdoing
Gaetz has strongly denied any wrongdoing at every stage of the committee's investigation, particularly the allegation that he had sexual contact with women under the age of 18, and has issued statements retracting the allegation and posted on social media. I also post on.
Last week, after news broke that the committee had voted to release its report to Gates, the former lawmaker said his past actions were “not criminal, but embarrassing.”
But the Florida Republican stepped up his criticism Monday morning, shortly before the commission formally released its report, but after it was leaked to some news outlets. He filed suit against the panel to prevent publication of the series of studies.
“Issuing a report with clear admission that the commission lacks jurisdiction over former members, fails to follow constitutional concepts of due process, and fails to adhere to its own procedural rules and precedents. “The apparent intent to do so represents an unprecedented overreach that threatens fundamental constitutional rights and established procedural protections,” Gaetz's lawyers wrote.
The former congressman told The Hill that the claim “would be thrown out in court. That's why it wasn't brought against me in any court.” He cited the Justice Department's decision not to indict Gates in 2023 after investigating whether he violated sex trafficking laws. He was in a relationship with a 17-year-old girl and traveled across state lines with her.
But the case is now largely moot since the Ethics Commission released its report Monday morning and made its findings available to the public.
Contributed by Emily Brooks.
