Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin (D) urged the House Ethics Committee to “preserve and share” its report on former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) after President-elect Trump tapped the Florida congressman to serve as attorney general.
After receiving the attorney general nod from Trump on Wednesday, House Speaker Mike Johnson announced that Gaetz will resign “effective immediately,” making the investigation, which was looking into whether Gaetz engaged in sexual misconduct and illicit drug use, among other allegations, effectively dead.
Durbin, who serves as the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, called on the ethics committee to share the report with the Senate Judiciary Committee, in a statement on Thursday.
“The sequence and timing of Mr. Gaetz’s resignation from the House raises serious questions about the contents of the House Ethics Committee report. We cannot allow this valuable information from a bipartisan investigation to be hidden from the American people,” the statement read.
“Make no mistake: this information could be relevant to the question of Mr. Gaetz’s confirmation as the next Attorney General of the United States and our constitutional responsibility of advice and consent,” he added in the statement.
In a thread of posts on the social platform X, Durbin emphasized his statement.
Prior to Trump’s announcement, the Ethics Committee was set to meet on Friday to vote on whether to release the report about Gaetz, a source told The Hill. Punchbowl News first reported the meeting.
The source said the committee was supposed to meet during the last week of July to vote on releasing Gaetz’s report. If the vote cleared, the panel would’ve published the report after the congressman’s August primary and before his November general election — abiding by the panel’s election blackout rules. But the House left for recess early in July, interrupting the vote, the source said.
Although the investigation ended because of Gaetz’s departure from Congress, the panel could still vote to release the report, in a rare move.
Trump’s pick of Gaetz as attorney general was not expected, as a source in the room where House Republicans were waiting to start leadership elections said there were audible gasps when Trump made the announcement.
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