WASHINGTON >> The House Ethics Committee secretly voted this month to release an investigative report into the conduct of former Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., according to three people with knowledge of the matter.

The panel’s vote, which was reported earlier by CNN, paved the way for the release of the report after House members cast the final votes of Congress this week and have left Washington to return to their districts, two of the people said.

It is an abrupt turnabout for the panel, which had previously declined to release the report. It came less than two weeks after House Republicans banded together to block a Democratic move on the floor to force the release of the report, instead returning the matter to the Ethics Committee for further consideration.

The haggling on Capitol Hill over the report intensified after President-elect Donald Trump announced last month that he had chosen Gaetz to lead the Justice Department, prompting anger and concern among members of both parties on Capitol Hill who were aware of serious allegations against him.

Since the spring of 2021, the Ethics Committee had been investigating Gaetz over an array of accusations, including that he engaged in sexual misconduct and illicit drug use, shared inappropriate images or videos on the House floor, misused state identification records, converted campaign funds to personal use and accepted gifts that violated House rules. Gaetz has denied the charges.

He decried the news today of the report’s impending release and noted that he had already been investigated by the Justice Department, which brought no charges against him.

“The Biden/Garland DOJ spent years reviewing allegations that I committed various crimes. I was charged with nothing: FULLY EXONERATED,” Gaetz wrote on the social platform X.

The Justice Department made the decision not to prosecute Gaetz after investigators concluded they could not make a strong enough case against him in court, in part because of a concern that some potential witnesses might not have stood up well under cross-examination, according to people familiar with the case who spoke about it at the time on the condition of anonymity.

In his post today, Gaetz denied some of the central allegations against him, including that he had paid an underage girl for sex and solicited prostitutes, dismissing them as a distortion of youthful indiscretions.

“In my single days, I often sent funds to women I dated — even some I never dated but who asked. I dated several of these women for years. I NEVER had sexual contact with someone under 18,” he wrote, adding: “My 30’s were an era of working very hard — and playing hard too. It’s embarrassing, though not criminal, that I probably partied, womanized, drank and smoked more than I should have earlier in life. I live a different life now.”

Gaetz abruptly resigned after Trump picked him to be attorney general, prompting House Republican leaders to argue that the Ethics Committee should not release the conclusions of its investigation, since Gaetz was no longer a member of Congress and therefore outside its jurisdiction.

Gaetz withdrew his name from consideration in the face of Senate opposition and is now set to join the conservative One America News Network as an anchor in January.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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