Rep. Matt Gaetz appears set to keep his spot on the House Judiciary Committee for the foreseeable future despite a federal investigation into his past sexual activity and a regular drip of unnamed sources alleging improper or illegal behavior.
Left-wing Democrats such as California Rep. Ted Lieu have called to remove the firebrand Florida Republican from the powerful committee post over the reports, but House Democratic leadership signaled that they will not move to oust Gaetz from the committee as long as there are no charges against him.
“I think it’s an issue for the Republicans to work out,” House Democratic Conference Chairman Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York said Wednesday when asked if Gaetz should be removed from the House Judiciary Committee. “The rules require that someone who is indicted stand down and be removed from their committees until the judicial process works itself out. He hasn’t been indicted yet, so let’s see what happens.”
Amid discussion of his committee future, Gaetz attended and participated in a Judiciary Committee meeting on Wednesday, the first gathering of the committee since news of the investigation into Gaetz.
GAETZ ASSOCIATE COOPERATING WITH DOJ: REPORT
Gaetz has repeatedly denied the allegations that he had sex with a 17-year-old girl or paid for prostitutes to travel across state lines. He asserts that the stories are part of a hit job from the Department of Justice and left-wing media, such as CNN, to defame him. News of the investigation spurred additional reports of unseemly behavior from Gaetz, including that he showed nude photos of women whom he slept with to other lawmakers, occasionally while on the House floor.
His denials, that the allegations against him come from unnamed sources and are not from a woman specifically accusing him of misconduct, and lack of any charges, complicate the matter for Democrats, who could appear to be denying Gaetz due process if they went ahead with removing him from committees.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has also softened her tone. When news of the investigation first broke, she said that removing Gaetz from the Judiciary Committee “is the least that could be done” if the allegations against him are true. On Sunday, Pelosi said, “It is up to the Republicans to take responsibility for that.”
Gaetz has found few friends among Republicans, other than firebrand Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, during the scandal. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy told reporters that Gaetz could lose his committee seats if the allegations turn out to be true.
Republican leaders who are not sticking their necks out for Gaetz have an interest in maintaining a certain standard for stripping members of power. Democrats in the House voted to strip Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene from her committee assignments earlier this year over her past incendiary comments after Republicans declined to do so.
“There’s been nothing that we’ve seen yet from the Department of Justice. If something’s going on, obviously, we’ll find out about it. You know, right now, it’s hard to speculate on rumors,” House Minority Whip Steve Scalise, a Louisiana Republican, told reporters on Wednesday. “If you look historically, you know, there’ve been a few cases where members have had charges filed against them for various things, and we removed them from committees immediately when that happened. That’s been the precedent that we’ve always followed.”
The House Ethics Committee, which last week opened an investigation to “gather additional information” about the public allegations that Gaetz “may have engaged in sexual misconduct and/or illicit drug use, shared inappropriate images or videos on the House floor, misused state identification records, converted campaign funds to personal use, and/or accepted a bribe, improper gratuity, or impermissible gift, in violation of House Rules, laws, or other standards of conduct.”
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Investigators started to look into Gaetz as part of a broader investigation into Joel Greenberg, a former tax collector in Seminole County, Florida, and a political ally of Gaetz, who was indicted in 2020 on charges including sex trafficking of a minor and financially supporting people in exchange for sex.
Further complicating the story is a separate investigation into a bizarre overture, which Gaetz called extortion, made to his father, former Florida state Senate President Don Gaetz, requesting a $25 million loan to rescue a missing ex-FBI agent in exchange for making the investigation go away.
