US House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson said the ethics panel should not release the investigation report into the sexual misconduct allegations against Matt Gaetz whom Donald Trump has named as the US attorney general. Mike Johnson said publishing the report would be a terrible breach of protocol and a terrible precedent to set as Gaetz is not a member of Congress. He resigned from Congress moments after he was named the attorney general, thus escaping the report that the ethics committee was going to publish soon.
Gaetz is a controversial choice and Republicans are certain that Gaetz won’t get confirmed by the Senate. The ethics committee has come under tremendous pressure to publish the report. A meeting was scheduled to take place today to decide through a vote whether to publish the report, but the meeting was canceled.
Gaetz, 42, who denies any wrongdoing, resigned from Congress on Wednesday, bringing the ethics probe to an end two days before the committee had been expected to release the document.
The former congressman faced a nearly three-year Justice Department investigation into sex-trafficking allegations involving a 17-year-old girl. His office said in 2023 he had been told by prosecutors he would not be charged.
“The rules of the House have always been that a former member is beyond the jurisdiction of the ethics committee,” Mike Johnson said though initially he said as Speaker he could not be involved in deciding whether or not to release the report.