PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsadio) — The U.S. House Ethics Committee, evenly divided between five Republicans and five Democrats, tied itself up on Wednesday on whether to release its report an investigation into former Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz, who is President-elect Donald Trump's nominee for U.S. Attorney General.
The former Florida lawmaker has been the subject of the committee's long-running ethics investigation into a number of allegations involving illegal drugs, bribes and sex with minors.
A woman testified to the committee that she attended a party in 2017 with the then-congressman and saw him having sex with a minor there, the woman's lawyer said. The same lawyer alleged on Monday that Gaetz paid this witness and another woman to have sex with him.
Gaetz has denied any wrongdoing and called the investigation into him a "smear campaign".
Lehigh Valley Congresswoman Susan Wild, the top Democrat on the panel, representing Allentown, Bethlehem and Easton, said Ethics Committee Chair Michael Guest, a Republican from Mississippi, implied incorrectly that the panel had reached consensus to not disclose the report. CBS News congressional correspondent Scott MacFarlane joined KYW's Michelle Durham to illuminate this and other stories coming out of Washington.
Michelle: Let's start with Matt Gaetz. Seems as though senators are divided about that ethics report.
Scott MacFarlane: The House Ethics Committee just concluded a marathon meeting here at the Capitol, and it decided not to release their lengthy three-year report on Matt Gaetz and allegations of sexual misconduct and illicit drug use. Those are allegations he has unequivocally denied.
The panel had an impasse today and couldn't decide whether or not to publicly release it, so they have broken down for the day and apparently will regather here the first week of December. So this is at least a temporary reprieve for Matt Gaetz, on whatever is in this report from the House Ethics Committee, as he seeks to become the next attorney general.
And as that was happening, across the Capitol, Gaetz was going office to office, meeting with some of the Republican senators who will vote on his confirmation, doing so alongside the vice president-elect, Sen. JD Vance from Ohio.
I wanted to talk about that, too, because it seems like House Speaker Mike Johnson seems to be in favor of the president-elect's picks being vetted by the Senate Confirmation Committee. The president-elect indicated that he would just prefer his picks be confirmed.
Yeah, the president-elect has talked about what are called "recess appointments" — which means the House and Senate go on recess for 10 days, and the president's appointees can just be put in place without the advise-and-consent functions of the Congress, without the Senate voting or having hearings.
The Senate and the House are going to be controlled by Republicans come January, but they still are very devoted to their autonomy and their powers of confirmation and of investigation. It's not clear the Senate is going to go along with [recess appointments]. They don't want to unilaterally disarm.
And President-elect Trump is nominating a steady stream of people as he continues to form that administration.
Happening at a pretty quick clip. Some of the names are familiar, aren't they?
—Mehmet Oz, two years after unsuccessfully running for U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania, is going to be the choice to run the Medicare and Medicaid system.
—Linda McMahon, whose name may be familiar because she used to operate the WWE wrestling company, to be the Department of Education Secretary — even though the incoming Trump administration wants to get rid of the U.S. Education Department.
This is happening in quick succession. And put this note on your calendar. They can start these confirmation hearings in January, even before Inauguration Day when the new Congress is are sworn in. That is Jan. 3.
And Congress is still trying to move on that desperately needed disaster relief in response to hurricanes that swept through the American Southeast.
Oh, they're months late on this. They ran out of some of these funds for disaster relief back in October, but they have been sluggish getting new money into the coffers. There are tens of thousands of people who need loans to rebuild houses and businesses from hurricanes that are waiting. But our best sourcing here on Capitol Hill is it's going to take potentially till Dec. 20 so they can finish this up and get billions of dollars out the door to those folks.