Gaetz ‘has a real problem here’, says the former ethics chairman

A former Republican chairman of the House Ethics Committee said “Matt Gaetz has a real problem here” after the committee released a scathing report Monday on its investigation into the former Florida GOP congressman, who was President-elect Donald Trump’s first choice to become Minister of Justice. .

The bipartisan House committee’s report found “substantial evidence” that Gaetz violated statutory rape laws and engaged in a broader pattern of paying women for sex, finding evidence of illegal drug use, accepting inappropriate gifts, granting special favors to personal employees and blocking the investigation.

“There are definitely problems here with sex, money and drugs. And they are really big problems, big problems,” Dent told ABC News’ Diane Macedo. “Boy, this is really powerful stuff.”

Dent added that “given the extent of what they’re alleging against Matt Gaetz, there could have been a deportation recommendation.”

“I don’t see any members of the Republican Party in Washington, DC, in Congress coming to his defense on this matter,” he said of Gaetz’s political future. “He’s made his own bed, they’re going to let him lie in it.”

After Gaetz resigned his seat, there were calls to release the report, as Gaetz was considered the nation’s top law enforcement official. House Speaker Mike Johnson opposed its release, citing a longstanding practice of ending ethics investigations after a member has left Congress.

Johnson has not responded to ABC News’ request for comment.

Chairman of the GOP House Ethics Committee Rep. Michael Guest of Mississippi said Monday that “the decision to release a report after (Gaetz’s) resignation breaks with the committee’s long-standing practice and is a dangerous departure with potentially disastrous consequences.”

Guest added that he did not vote to support the release of the report and that “the majority departed from the committee’s well-established standards and voted to release a report on an individual who is no longer under the committee’s jurisdiction.”

However, he said he “does not dispute the committee’s findings.”

California Democratic Representative Mark DeSaulnier, one of seven members of the House Ethics Committee who voted to release the report, believes its contents “disqualify Mr. Gaetz from ever being trusted to hold public office again.”

“I strongly believe in the public’s right to the results of a bipartisan, taxpayer-funded investigation, and that transparency and accountability are essential to good governance and restoring trust in our institutions,” DeSaulnier said in a statement Monday, adding that the report “speaks for itself .”

Another member of the Democratic committee, Maryland Rep. Glenn Ivey, told ABC News’ Kyra Phillips that “there is certainly precedent for doing exactly what we’ve done here.”

“The committee has had previous scenarios — at least four that we’ve identified — where a member of Congress has been under investigation, left for one reason or another … The committee still released the report to the public,” he explained, adding that this has happened to both Democratic and Republican representatives.

Ivey also said the allegations against Gaetz were “serious enough” and he agreed that his colleagues on both sides of the political spectrum had strong reactions to the allegations.

Earlier Monday, Gaetz filed a lawsuit against the ethics committee in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to try to block the report’s release. Judge Amit Mehta ordered Gaetz to show cause the case should not be dismissed with prejudice for lack of jurisdiction by 1 p.m.

Gaetz’s attorneys filed a brief Monday afternoon acknowledging that his lawsuit was “redundant” after the release of the report, which they said caused Gaetz “irreversible and irreparable harm.”

Gaetz questioned the claim that he sent money to women in exchange for sex, writes on X“giving money to someone you’re dating – that they didn’t ask for – and that isn’t ‘charged’ for sex, is now prostitution?!?”

He also criticized the timing of the report’s release, saying “there’s a reason they did this to me in a Christmas Eve report and not in a courtroom of any kind where I could present evidence and challenge witnesses.”

Gaetz had been defending himself over the past week, denying wrongdoing and repeatedly stressing that he was not charged in a Justice Department investigation looking into similar allegations.

“I was accused of nothing: Completely acquitted,” he wrote X last week.

“My 30s was an era of working very hard – and playing hard too,” he added. “It is embarrassing, but not criminal, that I probably partied, womanised, drank and smoked more than I should have done earlier in life. I live a different life now.”

Dent pushed back on Gaetz’s defense that he is a changed man.

“This whole issue is about his behavior while in office, not things that he may have done when he was younger,” he told ABC News.

Gaetz resigned from his congressional seat representing Florida’s 1st District after Trump picked him to be AG, but later withdrew from consideration amid reports that the Ethics Committee was preparing to release its report.

Gaetz was re-elected to his seat in the next Congress, but said he would not return after withdrawing from consideration for attorney general. But last week he wrote that someone suggested that he back to congress to vote for the speaker election and to “file a privileged motion to disclose every “me too” settlement paid for with public funds (even by former members.”

Dent said he suspected there would be “an immediate motion to expel him” if Gaetz were to attend the next Congress.

Former Rep. George Santos, RN.Y., who was kicked out of the House in 2023 after the ethics committee found “a complex web of illegal activity involving Rep. Santos’ campaign, personal and business finances,” jumped on Gaetz’s defense.

“The report on Matt Gaetz sounds like an opposition report…want to know why? Because the “ethics committee” is staffed by a bunch of political HACKS!” he said Monday.

Like Santos after leaving Congress, Gaetz began selling videos on Cameo — a site where users can buy personal video messages from celebrities — after recusing himself from AG consideration.

Gaetz also recently joined the One America News Network, where he is scheduled to host a one-hour weeknight show starting in January, in addition to hosting a weekly video podcast with OAN’s Dan Ball.

OAN did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the ABC.