WASHINGTON >> The House on Thursday night blocked the release of a damaging Ethics Committee report about former Rep. Matt Gaetz, as Republicans voted to bury it, an expected move that makes it less likely the materials will ever be made public.

Republicans closed ranks to turn back two nearly identical Democratic-written resolutions that would have forced the release of the report on the ethics panel’s yearslong investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct and illicit drug use by Gaetz, R-Fla.

They did so by moving to refer both measures back to the committee, which has so far refused to make public its conclusions.

The vote on the first resolution was 206-198, almost entirely along party lines, with nearly all Republicans voting to block the report’s release and Democrats voting to make it public. The vote on the second measure, which included language about preserving the records but also demanded their release, was 204-198, also almost all along party lines.

Just one Republican, Rep. Tom McClintock of California, sided with the Democrats.

Democrats have continued to press for the release of the ethics report, even though Gaetz has resigned from Congress and removed himself as President-elect Donald Trump’s choice for attorney general, at least in part because the ethics report was complicating his confirmation process.

Speaker Mike Johnson has said that because Gaetz is no longer a sitting member of Congress, the release of the report would set a bad precedent in the House and has urged the Republican-led committee not to release its findings.

Democrats have argued that burying the report is concealing credible allegations of sexual misconduct.

“No workplace would allow that information to be swept under the rug simply because someone resigned from office,” Rep. Sean Casten, D-Ill., who has spearheaded the move to release the report, told ABC News.

Gaetz has denied all of the allegations.

“The member being referenced in the resolution has actually resigned from the House of Representatives; therefore, the question is moot,” Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the House majority leader, said on the floor Thursday night, moving to refer the resolution back to the committee.

Since 2021, the House Ethics Committee has been investigating allegations about Gaetz. That year, it opened an inquiry into sexual misconduct allegations as well as claims that Gaetz misused state identification records, converted campaign funds to personal use, accepted impermissible gifts under House rules, and shared inappropriate images or videos on the House floor, among other transgressions.

The secretive, bipartisan committee met earlier Thursday for close to three hours to discuss the report, but all of its members were mum as they left the meeting.

After the session, the committee issued a terse statement saying that it “met today to discuss the matter of Representative Matt Gaetz. The committee is continuing to discuss the matter. There will be no further statements other than in accordance with committee and House rules.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

© 2024 The New York Times Company