Sen. Chuck Grassley (Iowa), the incoming Republican chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Tuesday that the House Ethics Committee would help speed up the Senate’s consideration of former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) to lead the Justice Department if it releases its report on Gaetz.
“I would suggest if they want a speedy consideration of this … it would help faster consideration, the extent to which they would make as much available as they can,” Grassley told a CNN camera crew on Capitol Hill.
Grassley said some of his GOP colleagues “have some questions” about Gaetz’s fitness to serve as the nation’s next attorney general.
He is the latest Republican senator to urge the House Ethics Committee to release its findings on Gaetz, who is accused of sexual misconduct and illicit drug use.
Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), another member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, told reporters last week that the Senate should have access to the House Ethics Committee’s report.
“I don’t believe there should be any restriction, including on that,” he said, arguing senators voting on Gaetz’s nomination should have access to all relevant materials.
Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) has also called for the report to be released.
“That should be definitely part of our decisionmaking,” he said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
“The background of Matt Gaetz does matter,” he argued.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said Gaetz’s sudden resignation from the House raises “serious questions,” because the House Ethics panel typically does not release reports on former lawmakers.
The Florida Republican resigned from Congress as the release of the Ethics Committee’s report was imminent, a source familiar with the matter told The Hill last week.
“We cannot allow this valuable information from a bipartisan investigation to be hidden from the American people. Make no mistake: this information could be relevant to the question of Mr. Gaetz’s confirmation as the next Attorney General of the United States and our constitutional responsibility of advice and consent,” Durbin said in a statement.
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and other House Republicans have called on the Ethics panel to keep its report secret, warning it would set a bad precedent to issue reports on individuals who have already left Congress.
“It should not come out,” Johnson told CNN’s “State of the Union.”
