Gaetz report ends up in deadlock!
Washington, Nov 20 (EFE).-
The US House Ethics Committee met on Wednesday to decide whether to make public a report of its investigation into former Rep. Matt Gaetz, but ended in deadlock.
Gaetz resigned from Congress when he was tapped last week by president-elect Donald Trump as the next attorney general and is being investigated by the committee over inappropriate sexual conduct and drug use, among other allegations.
House Ethics Committee chairman and Republican Michael Guest told reporters at the end of the nearly two-hour meeting in the Capitol that there was “not an agreement by the committee to release the report.”
Susan Wild, the top Democratic representative on the panel, said there was “no consensus,” and suggested the vote was evenly split along party lines. She said it plans to reconvene on 5 Dec. 5.
The committee, with five Democrats and five Republicans, was going to submit its decision to a vote last Friday, but Gaetz’s resignation from his seat two days earlier effectively ended the investigation.
Although the Florida representative’s departure from Congress left the commission without jurisdiction to investigate him, the publication of the findings of its investigation opened in 2021 for alleged sexual misconduct, illicit drug use, giving personal favors and obstructing the House probe was still up in the air.
As part of its investigation, the ethics committee interviewed two women who testified that Gaetz paid them for sex at a party in Florida, where prostitution is illegal.
According to the women’s lawyer, Joel Leppard, who spoke to NBC News, one of them also testified that she saw Gaetz having sex with a minor, although she noted that she did not believe he knew her friend was 17 at the time.
Gaetz has denied the accusations. Trump’s transition team considered them “baseless” and recalled that the Department of Justice closed a parallel investigation without charge.
Several senators, both Republican and Democrat, had said they wanted to review the report before the Senate Judiciary Committee examines Gaetz’s nomination next year and then the full House of Representatives approves or stops it.
The Senate is responsible for authorizing the future cabinet positions, but until then Gaetz has the support of Trump, who has said he is not reconsidering his decision to appoint him.
Although the House committee did not vote for the release of the report, there has been some information published by the national press.
The lawyer for the two young women said that they provided the committee with “numerous” photos related to the time they spent with the Republican, and were paid more than $6,000 and $4,000 by the congressman to sleep with them, according to CNN.
Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson had wanted to stay out of the committee’s decision, but at the same time did not consider it appropriate for the committee to disclose its investigation.
“I think that would be a Pandora’s box,” Johnson told CNN on Sunday. “I don’t think we want the House ethics committee using all of its vast resources and powers to go after private citizens, and that’s what Matt Gaetz is now.” EFE
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