WASHINGTON — Former Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., sought an eleventh-hour restraining order Monday against the House Ethics Committee in an unsuccessful effort to halt the panel's release of a final report summarizing its investigation into him.
The court filing accused the committee of an "unconstitutional" attempt "to exercise jurisdiction over a private citizen through the threatened release of an investigative report containing potentially defamatory allegations, in violation of the Committee’s own rules.”
Gaetz's lawyers said in the complaint, submitted in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, that the committee's intention to release the report about him "represents an unprecedented overreach that threatens fundamental constitutional rights and established procedural protections" after the panel acknowledged that "it lacks jurisdiction over former members."
The complaint argued the report would irreparably hurt Gaetz's reputation, saying that the threatened release "concerning matters of sexual propriety and other acts of alleged moral turpitude constitutes irreparable harm that cannot be adequately remedied through monetary damages."
The court challenge was filed in the morning, and the clerk's office soon informed Gaetz's attorneys that there were paperwork errors made in the complaint that needed to be corrected before any action could be taken. Later on Monday, after the committee released the report, U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta asked Gaetz why his lawsuit should not be dismissed as moot and gave him until 5 p.m. ET to respond.
Attorneys for Gaetz agreed it should be tossed, and said the damage had already been done.
"Due to the Defendant’s unprecedented and procedurally defective decision to publicize the Report that was the subject of Plaintiff’s Motion for a Temporary Restraining Order without notice to Plaintiff and while Defendants’ knew or reasonably should have known of this pending action, Plaintiff has now suffered irreversible and irreparable harm," their filing said.
NBC News reported last week that the House Ethics Committee had voted to publicly release the panel’s report detailing its investigation into Gaetz. The yearslong probe examined allegations that Gaetz had engaged in sexual misconduct and illicit drug use, accepted improper gifts, gave special favors to people with whom he had personal relationships, and obstructed the House investigation.
Gaetz has denied any criminal wrongdoing and said in a post on X last week that in his single days, he paid women he dated, but said he “NEVER had sexual contact with someone under 18. ... 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,” he said. “I live a different life now.”
The Department of Justice had investigated Gaetz for sex trafficking, but ultimately decided not to charge him.
Concerns about the allegations against Gaetz caused him to withdraw his name from consideration to be President-elect Donald Trump’s attorney general. He resigned from the House last month after Trump picked him.
While Gaetz has asserted that it's against the committee's practices to release ethics reports about former members, there is precedent for it. Two months after Bill Boner, D-Tenn., resigned from the House in 1987, and on the day Buz Lukens, R-Ohio, resigned from the House in 1990, the committee released reports into them.
