The House Ethics Committee will reportedly meet this week to discuss its yearslong investigation into former Rep. Matt Gaetz as questions swirl about whether the panel should still release its findings after he resigned from Congress.
The committee is scheduled to meet on Wednesday, five days after it was initially slated to hold a meeting to discuss the report. However, that meeting was later postponed after Gaetz abruptly left Congress last week when President-elect Donald Trump nominated him for attorney general.
A spokesperson for the Ethics Committee declined to comment on its meeting schedule when asked by the Washington Examiner.
The timing of Gaetz’s nomination and resignation raised eyebrows across Capitol Hill. Republican leaders were also quick to distance themselves from the postponement, telling reporters they have nothing to do with the Ethics Committee’s decisions or timing on its reports.
It remains unclear how the committee will move forward with the report as it typically refrains from publishing its findings of lawmakers after they have left office. However, it is not completely unprecedented. At least three members of Congress have had their ethics inquiries published after leaving: former Reps. Bill Boner and Mark Foley and former Sen. John Ensign.
Florida attorney Joel Leppard, who represents the two women who have appeared before the House Ethics Committee, revealed on Monday that his clients testified they were both paid by Gaetz to have sex, he told ABC News. One of the women also told investigators that she witnessed Gaetz having sex with a third woman who was underage at the time.
“She testified [that] in July of 2017, at this house party, she was walking out to the pool area, and she looked to her right, and she saw Rep. Gaetz having sex with her friend, who was 17,” Leppard told the outlet.
Gaetz stopped having sexual relations with the 17-year-old girl when he realized she was underage, Leppard said.
“Her understanding was that Matt Gaetz did not know that she was a minor, and that when he learned that she was a minor, that he broke off things and did not continue a sexual relationship until she turned 18,” Leppard told the outlet.
Leppard also said the adult women testified that Gaetz paid the two women through Venmo and that they presented the receipts to the women while they were testifying.
“The House was very clear about that and went through each,” Leppard said. “They essentially put the Venmo payments on the screen and asked about them. And my clients repeatedly testified, ‘What was this payment for?’ ‘That was for sex.'”
Trump transition spokesman Alex Pfeiffer stood by Gaetz, who has denied all allegations of wrongdoing. The Justice Department also investigated sex trafficking but did not bring charges.
“Matt Gaetz will be the next Attorney General,” Pfeiffer told the Washington Examiner in a statement. “He’s the right man for the job and will end the weaponization of our justice system. These are baseless allegations intended to derail the second Trump administration. The Biden Justice Department investigated Gaetz for years and cleared him of wrongdoing.”
Still, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has asked that the report be kept under wraps even after initially telling reporters he would not get involved.
“I’m going to strongly request that the Ethics Committee not issue the report because that is not the way we do things in the House,” Johnson told reporters Friday. “The rules of the House have always been that a former member is beyond the jurisdiction of the Ethics Committee, and so I don’t think that’s relevant.”
Over the weekend, Johnson denied that he shifted his tone because of private conversations with Trump, telling CNN that he has not spoken with the president-elect about the ethics report.
Since April 2021, the House Ethics Committee has been investigating allegations that the former Florida lawmaker may have “engaged in sexual misconduct and illicit drug use, accepted improper gifts, dispensed special privileges and favors to individuals with whom he had a personal relationship, and sought to obstruct government investigations of his conduct.”
ABC News reported that a woman who was part of a yearslong Justice Department investigation into sex trafficking allegations testified to the Ethics Committee that Gaetz had sex with her when she was 17 years old. Gaetz has denied all the allegations.
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Rep. Glenn Ivey (D-MD), who sits on the House Ethics Committee, told the Washington Examiner that he was not sure what the precedent for that would be, but he noted that “typically for confirmation hearings, the Senate has gotten whatever it’s wanted.”
“In fact, I think it’s essential for them to get that kind of information before they make a decision of this magnitude,” Ivey said.
David Sivak contributed to this report.
