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WASHINGTON, D.C. — Former Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., solicited prostitutes and used illicit drugs while in Congress, according to a report released Monday by the House Ethics Committee. The report found “substantial evidence” that Gaetz paid a 17-year-old high school student for sex when he was 35 and use drugs like cocaine and ecstasy.
This fall, President-elect Trump’s nomination of Gaetz for Attorney General ignited public interest in the committee’s 2021 investigation. Even after Gaetz resigned from Congress and withdrew his nomination, the choice to release the results came down the 10 members of the committee, including Rep. Dave Joyce, R-Ohio.
After Gaetz was nominated to Trump’s cabinet, Democrats on the committee voiced support for releasing the report, or at least releasing it to the Senate Judiciary Committee to consider before voting to confirm Gaetz.
“It’s obviously relevant to the vote that they’ll take with respect to confirmation,” committee member Rep. Glenn Ivey, D-Md., said on Nov. 19.
Some Republicans joined Democrats in calling for the release of the report, while others said the committee had no jurisdiction over former members of Congress.
The committee, composed of five Democrats and five Republicans, voted in November to keep the report sealed.
A month later, the committee reversed course in a secret vote, though some Republicans still objected over the jurisdiction issue.
“While we do not challenge the Committee’s findings, we take great exception that the majority deviated from the Committee’s well-established standards and voted to release a report on an individual no longer under the Committee’s jurisdiction, an action the Committee has not taken since 2006,” Ethics Committee Chair Michael Guest, R-N.J., wrote in a dissenting view attached to the final report.
It’s unclear which Republicans changed their mind to join Democrats in voting to release the report.
Rep. Dave Joyce, R-Ohio, who sits on the committee, has remained tight-lipped on the investigation since Spectrum News first asked him about it in April. Joyce said he could not comment on any investigations that may be before the committee.
Joyce’s office did not respond to a request for comment on the release of the report.
He and Gaetz have feuded publicly in the past.
In 2023 Gaetz posted a video attacking Joyce for accepting campaign donations from political action committees, after Joyce suggested in an interview that Gaetz was only threatening to oust then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in order to raise his own profile.
In August Gaetz posted on X that Joyce “shouldn’t be on the Ethics Committee” because Joyce’s reelection campaign donated to the campaign of Aaron Dimmock, who unsuccessfully challenged Gaetz in the Republican primary.
Gaetz has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing. He made a flurry of social media posts on Monday challenging the validity of the report.
