In the aftermath of the House Ethics Committee’s report released on former Rep. Matt Gaetz, which details a trove of alleged payments for sex and drugs, the panel’s chairman has come out saying he was not one of the votes in favor of releasing the committee’s findings.
Rep. Michael Guest (R-Miss.), who has been in charge of the committee for over a year now, issued a press release Monday. In it, the chairman said that while he did not disagree with what was included in the report on Gaetz (R-Fla.), he believes the committee should have withheld it from the public eye considering Gaetz is no longer a member of Congress.
“I believe, have publicly stated, and remain steadfast in the position that the House Committee on Ethics lost jurisdiction to release to the public any substantive work product regarding Mr. Gaetz after his resignation from the House,” Guest wrote. “While I do not challenge the Committee’s findings, I did not vote to support the release of the report and I take great exception that the majority deviated from the Committee’s well-established standards and voted to release a report on an individual no longer under the Committee’s jurisdiction, an action the Committee has not taken since 2006.”
Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., appears before the House Rules Committee at the Capitol in Washington, Friday, Sept. 22, 2023. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)
As Guest pointed out, Gaetz resigned last month after President-elect Donald Trump nominated him for the position of U.S. Attorney General. With swift backlash pouring in, as Gaetz had previously been the subject of a Justice Department investigation over the alleged misconduct and illicit drug use, Gaetz withdrew his name after meeting with senators in an attempt to garner enough support to be confirmed when the new administration takes over in January.
Guest also pointed to an instance nearly two decades ago in which the House Ethics Committee released the results of its investigation into Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fla.) even though Foley was no longer in Congress. The committee is said to not have jurisdiction over former members, which pushed
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