Former Florida Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz sued the House Ethics Committee and asked for a temporary restraining order to stop the public release of a report that came out of an investigation into allegations of sexual and drug misconduct.
The former Republican in the House recently resigned from Congress after being named Attorney General by President-elect Donald Trump. At that time, the private ethics report was about to be made public, but the investigation was put on hold when he left Congress.
However, the committee decided in a secret vote late last week that the report should be made public.
Gaetz has previously denied all allegations of misconduct.
CNN’s Scott MacFarlane says that Gaetz’s argument for a restraining order to stop the report from being released was that “media coverage would be immediate and widespread.”
CBS reportedly accessed a “final draft” of the Gaetz investigation report. On Monday the network reported on the findings that the former congressman “paid numerous women — including a 17-year-old girl — for sex” as well as “purchased and used illegal drugs, including from his Capitol Hill office.”
Gaetz is set to host his own show on the One America News Network.
Ginger Gaetz, the former Florida congressman’s wife, later stated on X that the show would start in January. She wrote in a vague post on the social media site on Sunday that “big news” was coming this week and included a picture of her husband. On OAN’s website, it says that The Matt Gaetz Show is “coming soon.”
The news comes just a few weeks after the former Florida congressman quit Congress and later took back his bid to be President-elect Trump’s next attorney general, Newsweek reported.
Calls for the House Ethics Committee to share a report on its investigation into Gaetz were an “unfair distraction” that caused him to withdraw his nomination. Gaetz has rejected all of the charges that the panel looked into, including claims that he used drugs and dated a 17-year-old girl while he was in office.
Since he pulled his name from consideration to lead the Department of Justice, Gaetz’s position had not been clear. In an interview with Charlie Kirk on November 22, he said that he had no plans to run for Congress again next year.
