House GOP blocks release of Gaetz ethics report detailing allegations of sex with minor

The House of Representatives voted down two efforts by Democrats to force the chamber to release a report on former Congressman Matt Gaetz from the House Ethics Committee.

The full scope of the report was a mystery, but it is known to have looked into allegations that Matt Gaetz had sex with a minor while serving as a member of Congress. Gaetz has repeatedly denied the accusations he faces, which state that he had repeated sexual encounters with a then-17-year-old girl at a party in 2017, during his first term.

The votes were largely along party lines, with Republicans eager to turn the page on their former colleague. Gaetz, a former congressman from Florida, resigned from the chamber ahead of a failed bid to become attorney general, which freed the House GOP majority from answering questions about his antics.

Gaetz is seen now as a likely candidate for governor in Florida as the state’s GOP leader Ron DeSantis is term-limited. He remains a top ally of former President Donald Trump, who selected Pam Bondi as his AG pick after the congressman withdrew from consideration.

Notably, Thursday’s votes are not the final decision on the report. The resolutions to force the release of the report were filed as privileged by Sean Casten and Steve Cohen, two Democrats, and came as the Ethics committee itself was still in discussion over its completion and release. It had initially been slated for release two days before Gaetz resigned from Congress, and the repeated delays in the time since came as some Republicans debated whether to release it at all.

The Ethics panel reportedly met for more than two hours on Thursday ahead of the vote, and released a statement which read in part: “The Committee is continuing to discuss the matter. There will be no further statements other than in accordance with Committee and House Rules.”

The end of his bid to serve as attorney general largely relieved the pressure from Republicans’ backs, but not completely. Gaetz still has many enemies in the chamber, as well as outside of it — former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who still has allies within the GOP caucus, is open in his hatred of the ex-congressman and speculated to The Independent in an interview at the Republican convention as recently as this summer that the report and related allegations would hamstring Gaetz’s bid for governor.

Members of the Ethics panel itself are known to be bitterly divided over the release of the report, and traded accusations of breaching House decorum after the committee’s previous meeting on the subject.

As the House’s primary watchdog for wrongdoing, the Ethics panel is unique in that it is evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats.

A report released by the panel in 2023 detailing a slew of wrongdoing by then-Congressman George Santos led to the expulsion of the fraud-loving New York congressman.