Former Rep. Matt Gaetz is quietly urging GOP senators to give him a chance to prove himself suitable to be attorney general amid growing calls from top Republicans to access a House Ethics Committee report expected to detail allegations of sexual misconduct involving the ex-congressman.
The GOP senator set to lead the Senate Judiciary Committee next year told CNN that having the House Ethics report would speed up the confirmation hearings, as Gaetz and Vice President-elect J.D. Vance head to Capitol Hill on Wednesday to try to lock down support for President-elect Donald Trump’s controversial pick. And Gaetz himself has been making calls to GOP senators and visiting his own loyalists in the House GOP.
The pressure is all building ahead of a planned Wednesday meeting of the House ethics panel, which is expected to discuss the fate of the report. If the panel does decide to vote on whether to publish the findings, it would take only one Republican to break with their party leadership for it to be released. But privately, Republicans on the panel are signaling that they could bury the report as Gaetz and Trump are making direct appeals.
Even though Gaetz is no longer a member of the House, his now-former colleagues are proceeding with extreme caution when it comes to the sensitive report into allegations of misconduct, including “sexual misconduct and illicit drug use” that could tank his future as Trump’s attorney general. Gaetz has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing, including ever having sex with a minor or paying for sex.
With the fate of the panel’s report up in the air, GOP Sen. Chuck Grassley, who will become Senate Judiciary chairman next Congress, told CNN that his panel would make it easier to move ahead with confirmation hearings quickly in the new year if the Ethics Committee were to release its report, given the interest from Republicans in seeing it. That’s a key signal that the Senate GOP may pursue the potentially damaging information against Gaetz even as pressure intensifies on Capitol Hill from Trump and Gaetz himself to proceed with the confirmation.
