Vice President-elect Senator JD Vance (R-OH) (L) and former Congressman Matt Gaetz (R-FL) leave the U.S. Capitol after meeting with Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee on November 20, 2024 in Washington, DC. are .
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The bipartisan House Ethics Committee deadlocked Wednesday over whether to release a report on the investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct and other wrongdoing by former Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz.
The result of the vote means that the report on Gaetz, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to be the next US attorney general, will not be released for now.
“There is no agreement to release the report,” Ethics Chair Michael Guest, R-Miss., told reporters after a closed-door meeting on Capitol Hill.
But Rep. Susan Wild of Pennsylvania, the panel’s ranking Democrat, pushed back on the characterization.
“The chairman has essentially suggested that the committee members were in agreement, which was certainly not the case,” he said.
He asserted that the vote on the 10-member committee, which is evenly split between Republicans and Democrats, fell along partisan lines.
“There was no consensus on the issue,” Wilde said.
It noted that the panel agreed to reconvene on December 5 “to further consider the matter”.
When asked if she agreed with the guest’s earlier comment that the panel’s report was incomplete, Wilde paused before saying, “I don’t really care to comment on the status of the report, except to say That we were in a position to vote today.”
gave Investigating ethics The focus is on whether Getz engaged in sexual misconduct or drug abuse, as well as whether he accepted improper gifts, privileged personal contacts or attempted to obstruct a government investigation of his conduct.
The committee halted its investigation in May 2023 at the request of the Justice Department, which was conducting its own investigation into allegations that Gaetz sexually trafficked a minor girl.
The DOJ closed the investigation without filing charges. The committee reauthorized its investigation in May 2023.
It was investigating Gaetz until he resigned from Congress last week, shortly after Trump tapped him to become the nation’s top law enforcement officer. Guest said his resignation removes him from the committee’s jurisdiction.
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