Vice President-elect, Sen. JD Vance (R-OH) (L) and former Congressman Matt Gaetz (R-FL) go away the U.S. Capitol after assembly with Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee on November 20, 2024 in Washington, DC.
Chip Somodevilla | Getty Photos
The bipartisan Home Ethics Committee deadlocked Wednesday on whether or not to launch a report on its investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct and different wrongdoing by former Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz.
The end result of the vote implies that the report on Gaetz, who’s President-elect Donald Trump’s decide to be the following U.S. legal professional basic, won’t be launched in the intervening time.
Ethics Chair Michael Visitor, R-Miss., informed reporters after the closed-door assembly on Capitol Hill, “There was no settlement to launch the report.”
However Rep. Susan Wild of Pennsylvania, the panel’s rating Democrat, pushed again on that characterization.
“The chairman has primarily prompt that there was settlement of the members of the committee, which there most undoubtedly was not,” she mentioned.
She pressured that the vote within the 10-member committee, which is evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats, fell alongside partisan strains.
“There was no consensus on this challenge,” Wild mentioned.
She famous that the panel did conform to reconvene on Dec. 5 to “additional take into account this matter.”
When requested if she agreed with Visitor’s prior comment that the panel’s report is unfinished, Wild paused earlier than saying, “I actually do not care to touch upon the standing of the report, besides to say that we have been able to vote at the moment.”
The ethics probe centered on whether or not Gaetz engaged in sexual misconduct or illicit drug use, in addition to whether or not he accepted improper items, gave particular favors to private contacts or sought to impede authorities investigations of his conduct.
The committee had paused its probe in Could 2023 on the request of the Division of Justice, which was conducting its personal investigation into allegations that Gaetz sex-trafficked a minor woman.
The DOJ ended that probe with out submitting prices. The committee reauthorized its investigation in Could 2023.
Gaetz has denied all wrongdoing. In September he mentioned he would now not voluntarily take part within the ethics probe, whereas revealing that the committee had requested him whether or not he ever “engaged in sexual exercise with any particular person below 18.”
“The reply to this query is unequivocally NO,” he wrote in reply.
The panel was investigating Gaetz till he resigned from Congress final week, shortly after Trump tapped him to turn out to be the nation’s high regulation enforcement officer.
Gaetz’s resignation removes him from the committee’s jurisdiction, Visitor mentioned.
Trump’s determination to pick out Gaetz, whose time in Congress was full of controversial remarks and feuds with different lawmakers, for a high-level Cupboard position has spurred intense pushback from Democrats and shock from Republicans.
Of all of the individuals Trump has picked to hitch his subsequent administration, Gaetz is considered because the least prone to be confirmed by the Senate.
Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee urged the FBI earlier Wednesday to show over all of the proof it had gathered from its investigation into Gaetz.
“The Senate has a constitutional responsibility to offer recommendation and consent on presidential nominees, and it’s essential that we assessment all the knowledge mandatory to satisfy this responsibility as we take into account Mr. Gaetz’s nomination,” reads the letter from Chairman Dick Durbin, D-Il., and 9 different Democrats.
