By LISA MASCARO, STEPHEN GROVES and FARNOUSH AMIRI
WASHINGTON (AP) — House Ethics Committee Republicans voted Wednesday against releasing the panel’s long-running investigation into President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for attorney general, former Rep. Matt Gaetz, the top Democrat on the panel said.
The outcome, however, is only a temporary reprieve for Gaetz, who faces allegations of sexual misconduct, as he works to personally secure his embattled nomination to be the nation’s top law enforcement official.
The House panel expects to meet again Dec. 5 to reconsider releasing its findings.
“There was no consensus on this issue,” said Rep. Susan Wild of Pennsylvania, the panel’s ranking Democrat, who said the vote fell along party lines on the evenly split committee.
The standoff comes as Trump and Gaetz are digging in for a potentially lengthy, brutal confirmation fight ahead. Gaetz met privately for hours Wednesday with Republican senators who have heard questions about the allegations and will be considering their votes on his nomination.
Trump has in Gaetz a valued ally who is bringing wide-ranging proposals to rid the Department of Justice of those perceived to have “weaponized” their work against the president-elect, his allies and conservatives in general.
At least one Republican senator decried the scrutiny as a “lynch mob” forming against Gaetz.
“I’m not going to legitimize the process to destroy the man because people don’t like his politics,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., as he left the private senators’ meeting.
“He deserves a chance to make his argument why he should be attorney general,” Graham said. “No rubber stamp, no lynch mob.”
Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., who is supportive of Gaetz’s nomination, emerged saying: “If you have concerns, that’s fine. But don’t make up your mind yet. Let the guy testify first.”
Gaetz has long denied the mounting allegations against him.
The House ethics panel, however, is not finished with its work.
Wild said the committee voted at a lengthy closed-door meeting, and no Republican joined Democrats who wanted to release the report. A vote to release just the exhibits underlying the report also failed along party lines, according to a person granted anonymity to discuss the private session.
However, the House committee did vote to complete the report, which passed with some Republican support, the person said.
Wild she she was compelled to speak up after the panel’s Republican chairman, Rep. Michael Guest of Mississippi, characterized what had transpired at its session. He had said there was no agreement reached on the matter.
As Gaetz mounts his campaign for confirmation, Trump himself told senators that he hoped “to get Matt across the finish line,” said Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., who was with the president-elect and others for a SpaceX rocket launch Tuesday with billionaire Elon Musk in Texas.
Vice President-elect JD Vance, an Ohio senator, was shepherding Gaetz through the Senate talks, largely with members of the Judiciary Committee that will be the first stop in confirmation proceedings. The meeting with Senate allies was largely a strategy session where he emphasized the need to get a hearing where he could lay out his and Trump’s vision for the Justice Department.
It follows a meeting Gaetz had at the start of the week with the conservative House Freedom Caucus, whose members have expressed enthusiasm for his approach to wholesale changes, which have instilled a climate of anxiety and dismay at the department.
Vance reminded the GOP senators that Trump’s presidential victory had coattails that boosted their ranks to the majority. “He deserves a Cabinet that is loyal to the agenda he was elected to implement,” the outgoing Ohio senator posted on social media.
At the same time, attorneys involved in a civil case brought by a Gaetz associate were notified this week that an unauthorized person accessed a file shared between lawyers that included unredacted depositions in a federal probe from a woman who has said Gaetz had sex with her when she was 17, and a second woman who says she saw the encounter, according to attorney Joel Leppard.
The Senate Judiciary Committee’s Democrats sent a letter Wednesday asking FBI Director Christopher Wray to provide to the panel “the complete evidentiary file,” including the forms memorializing interviews ”in the closed investigation of former Congressman Matt Gaetz’s alleged sex trafficking of minors.”
Gaetz has said the department’s investigation into sex trafficking allegations involving underage girls, separate from the House committee’s probe, had ended with no federal charges against him.
“The grave public allegations against Mr. Gaetz speak directly to his fitness to serve as the chief law enforcement officer for the federal government,” wrote Judiciary Chairman Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and others on the panel.
While House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has said the committee should not release the report because Gaetz swiftly resigned his congressional seat after Trump announced the nomination, several GOP senators have indicated they want all information before having to make a decision on how they would vote.
Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, who also met with Gaetz, said of the committee’s report, “We didn’t get into a lot of detail as to what he expects to be in there, but he expressed confidence that what is before the committee are a series of false accusations.”
Gaetz emerged at congressional oversight hearings as he railed against what conservatives claim is favoritism within the Justice Department, which indicted Trump over alleged mishandling of classified documents after he left office and for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election before the Jan. 6, 2021, attack at the Capitol.
But the president-elect’s pick has been among his most surprising and provocative.
Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., a Trump ally, said she had a great meeting with Gaetz and looked forward to “a speedy confirmation for our next attorney general.” She wrote on social media that Trump’s Cabinet ”is going to shake up the D.C. swamp, and we look forward to moving his nominees.”
Cramer still said Gaetz had a “steep climb” to confirmation.
“Donald Trump is understandably, legitimately and authentically concerned that he has an attorney general that’s willing to do what he wants him to do,” Cramer said. “Matt Gaetz is definitely the guy that will not hold on any punches. ”
As soon as the new Congress convenes Jan. 3, 2025, when Republicans take majority control, senators are expected to begin holding hearings on Trump’s nominees, with voting possible on Inauguration Day, Jan. 20.
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Associated Press writer Mary Clare Jalonick contributed to this report.
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