It's been a busy couple hours here, especially for you,
Jay, as I know you've been trying to talk to
members of this House Ethics Committee.
And now we're just learning as we come on the
air here that they have voted against releasing this report
on Matt Gates.
What more do we know?
Yeah, Let me break down for you exactly what we
know so far here, Cana.
So we know, according to one source with knowledge of
this who spoke to our reporter will stake in, that
there were multiple rounds of votes behind those closed doors
of the House Ethics Committee.
And this is a closed proceeding, so we only can
learn about what happened from people who are in the
room.
This was not a public kind of forum.
But we've learned from a source that there were multiple
rounds of votes, and none of those votes resulted in
the committee agreeing to release the report that we know
that they have been compiling into Matt Gaetz and that
committee's reporting.
An investigation stopped.
Remember when Matt Gaetz resigned in order to become Donald
Trump's pick for attorney general?
You're looking on your screen at the exact makeup of
this committee.
And those are the Republicans on this committee.
There's an equal number of Republicans to Democrats on this
committee, 5:00 to 5:00.
And we know that going into these proceedings, Democrats on
the committee said they wanted to force a vote to
release this report, the product of months of investigations into
Matt Gaetz and allegations of sex with a minor, allegations
of sex trafficking, allegations of illicit drug use, all things
that Matt Gaetz denies, by the by.
And it would only take one Republican breaking ranks with
its Republic, with their Republican colleagues and going against what
House Speaker Mike Johnson has said he wants and voting
with Democrats in order for this report to be released.
And from what we're learning from what transpired behind those
closed doors, it looks like that did not happen.
And there was no vote, vote that resulted in this
report being released today.
Cato and Jay, just to follow up here, again, this
is 10 members.
It's a bipartisan right.
And it sounds like there's at least one member of
Congress who's considering bringing some kind of privileged resolution forwards
if they would decide not to release this report, which
we've now learned from will stake in that they have
any chance that privilege privileged resolution goes anywhere.
Yeah.
And so this member is someone named Sean Castens, who
is not a member of the Ethics Committee.
And what he said today is that if the Ethics
Committee voted not to release this report, as we've learned
from sourcing that they appear to not have today, that
Sean Castens would then put what's called a privilege resolution
on the House floor.
And under the House rules, a privilege resolution like that
would have to be voted on in two legislative days.
And the resolution that he wants to put forward and
get voted on within two legislative days is to compel
the House Ethics Committee to make this report public.
And that would involve, sure, it were to pass about
four or five Republicans breaking ranks with their Republican colleagues
and voting with what we assume to be all Democrats
in order for this report to be released.
So that's a tall order, especially if you can't get
one Republican on the House Ethics Committee to defy what
Speaker Johnson wants and vote to release this report.
Certainly, it's not outside the realm of possibility.
But Republicans would likely move to try to table that
resolution by Sean Castens.
And they control the House of Representatives.
So theoretically, that move would work.
And it doesn't look like that would be a likely
way for this report to become public.
But you have to watch the vote count as it
transpires if it does ultimately make it to the House
floor for a vote.
And Jay, of course, there's so much interest in this
report because of documents obtained by ABC News that show
this records include, you know, a check and even records
of Venmo payments that appear to show Gates paid more
than $10,000 to two women who were later witnesses in
this sexual misconduct probe.
Again, Matt Gaetz has denied all of these accusations, but
that's part of the reason there's so much interest in
this, Jay.
And even if the report doesn't get released, can the
findings still go to the Senate?
Are they privyted?
Do we have this information before these confirmation hearings?
Well, Senate Republicans certainly want to be CANA.
They have said that they want all transparency into this
ability of vetting.
Matt Gaetz, Chuck Grassley, for instance, said if the White
House, with Trump, White House come January, wants this to
be a smooth confirmation process.
He wants full transparency.
And that would mean in theory, whatever the House Ethics
Committee was able to uncover over the course of its
investigation and also whatever the Justice Department is able to
uncover over its investigation.
Matt Gaetz, which Matt Gaetz made a point to point
out resulted in no criminal charges.
A point being Senate Republicans met with Matt Gaetz and
VP elect JD Vance today on Capitol Hill.
And we know from the senators who emerge from that
hearing, the common denominator was they want Matt Gaetz to
have a hearing.
They want, as Lindsey Graham put it, him to have
the chance to quote a, quote, face his accusers.
And so you can expect Matt Gaetz confirmation hearings, and
you can expect senators to try to gather as much
as they can, including whatever they can get out of
this House House Ethics Committee report to prepare for that
confirmation process.