Matt Gaetz has confronted allegations of intercourse trafficking a 17-year-old lady, drug use, and misappropriating marketing campaign funds.
A congressional ethics panel that investigated allegations of unlawful conduct by Matt Gaetz, United States President-elect Donald Trump’s selection for legal professional basic, has parted with out releasing its report on the previous congressman.
Gaetz was the topic of a long-running investigation by the USA Home Committee on Ethics, which polices lawmakers’ conduct.
The panel’s investigation, launched in 2021, probed a number of situations of alleged criminality involving Gaetz, an ex-lawmaker from Florida, together with the intercourse trafficking of a 17-year-old lady, drug use, misappropriating marketing campaign funds and different illicit actions.
The US Division of Justice final yr closed an investigation into intercourse trafficking allegations in opposition to Gaetz with out submitting prison prices.
Gaetz was first elected to the Home of Representatives in 2016 and gained re-election this month. However the 42-year-old resigned shortly after Trump named him as his selection for legal professional basic on November 13.
His resignation got here simply days earlier than the ethics panel was set to vote on whether or not to launch its report, creating uncertainty over its destiny, on condition that Gaetz is not a member of Congress.
After a roughly two-hour closed-door assembly on Wednesday, the 10-member panel, which is evenly cut up between Republicans and Democrats, departed with out reaching a call.
“There may be not an settlement by the committee to launch the report,” Republican chairman Michael Visitor instructed reporters following the assembly.
Whereas the committee members voted alongside social gathering strains, elected officers from each events have referred to as for the report back to not less than be shared with the US Senate, which votes on cupboard nominations, as they put together to contemplate whether or not to substantiate Gaetz as legal professional basic.
Some Republicans have argued in opposition to releasing the report, together with Home Speaker Mike Johnson, who mentioned making it public would set a “horrible precedent”.
The highest Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senator Dick Durbin, on Wednesday launched a public letter addressed to FBI Director Christopher Wray demanding entry to the information referring to the “alleged intercourse trafficking of minors”.
“To ensure that the Senate to carry out its constitutional responsibility on this occasion, we should be capable of totally evaluate all related supplies that talk to the credibility of those severe allegations in opposition to Mr. Gaetz,” Durbin’s letter mentioned.
Gaetz has repeatedly denied wrongdoing and labelled the investigations politically motivated.
