Pressure is building on the House Ethics Committee to release its findings on former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), who President-elect Trump said he will nominate to be attorney general.
Such a move would be highly unusual, since the committee has no jurisdiction to investigate a former lawmaker, and does not typically release information on investigations after members depart the House.
But with Gaetz nominated to be the country’s attorney general, Democrats and some Republicans want to see what the committee found.
“I think there should not be any limitation on the House Judiciary Committee’s investigation, including whatever the House Ethics Committee has generated,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee that would assess Gaetz’s nomination, told reporters on Wednesday. Cornyn added that he “absolutely” wanted to see the Ethics panel’s findings.
Gaetz’s abrupt resignation from the House on Wednesday came as the release of the Ethics Committee’s report was imminent, a source familiar with the matter told The Hill. The panel was scheduled to meet on Friday to vote on whether or not to release the report about Gaetz, the source said, as first reported by Punchbowl News.
While such a move is very rare, there is precedent for the committee releasing a report after a member resigned. In 1987, the committee released its report on former Rep. William Boner (D-Tenn.) after he resigned from the House.
Some senators are expecting that the upper chamber will get the report. Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) said that the report will “clearly become part of the record, even if it’s a secure record,” as the........