House Ethics Committee Report on Gaetz Released; Reveals What Iowans Voted to Hide
Reps. Miller-Meeks, Hinson, Nunn, & Feenstra voted to keep credible, bi-partisan findings of massive corruption from voters
We now know, specifically, what all four Iowans in the U.S. House were voting to hide on December 5, when they voted to keep secret the Ethics Committee’s report on its investigation and findings of Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL).
We know now because the Ethics Committee unexpectedly flipped and released the report on it own, even though the House had voted to bury it by sending it back to committee where it was expected to fade away with the old Congress that just ended.
The committee’s reversal came without warning on Monday, December 23. The “just before Christmas” release date seems intended to bury the report in all the hustle and bustle of the holidays, but that’s not what happened. It got noticed. Big time.
It’s a safe bet Iowa Reps. Miller-Meeks, Hinson, Nunn and Feenstra - who voted to hide the report - didn’t see that coming. Those kind of votes only get cast when folks are certain everybody will stick together and stay mum, and that nobody outside the “inner club” will ever find out what really happened.
What did the committee find? What were its conclusions?
NOTE: Better ask the kids to leave the room if this is being read out loud to you by some kind of “text to voice” app, or by your spouse or partner. Yes, it is that kind of bad.
The committee’s bipartisan conclusion was that there was “substantial evidence” that Gaetz regularly paid women to engage in sexual activity with him, possessed illegal drugs including cocaine and ecstasy, and accepted gifts in excess of what House rules allow. One of the “women” he paid for sex, according to the committee, was a minor - a 17 year old girl at the time.
Pledging to represent and advance “Iowa’s values” is a routine promise Iowans from both parties make when they run for Congress. I’m pretty certain no Iowan thinks those values are the the values the Ethics committee found “substantial evidence” that Gaetz pursued, or that the Iowan delegation in the House voted to help him hide.
But here we are.
When the issue of whether to release the report was still being discussed, we heard the excuses from Gaetz’s Republican enablers in the House who complained about the possibility of releasing the bipartisan report and then voted as a partisan block to keep things quiet.
His enablers said:
Gaetz was investigated by law enforcement but never charged with a crime.
Gaetz was no longer a member of the U.S. House of Representative. So, the report can’t be released.
Gaetz is a private citizen now so what the Ethics Committee learned about what he may or may not have done as a Congressman is nobody’s business.
And my favorite: They were just trying uphold past precedent and traditional procedures. Gosh. They didn’t even know what investigators found or what was likely to be in the report.
Let’s look at each of those excuses - and that’s what they are, excuses - individually:
First, the fact that Gaetz was never charged with a crime does not mean he was exonerated of anything. It means nothing about whether the “substantial evidence” of alleged corruption and crimes the committee found are true..
It just means that - for whatever reason, and there are many possible reasons - prosecutors just didn’t think they could win a case at that time.
Second, release of the Gaetz investigation and report after he left Congress would not be the first time a such a report on an investigation of a member of the House who had already resigned was released. It’s been done before and no House rule prevents it.
Third, the bipartisan investigation of Gaetz and what it found is everybody business.
(1) the investigation looked into activities of a sitting member of Congress who was voting on legislation that affects all Americans.
(2) The investigation was conducted by public officials who are paid by taxpayers;
(3) The investigation itself was paid for by taxpayers.
I’m reminded of that famous 1980 Republican presidential primary debate in New Hampshire in Nashua. To make a long story short, a dust up occurred between Ronald Reagan and the moderator, a Mr. Green, publisher of the Nashua Telegraph which was hosting the debate. The Federal Election Commission (FEC) had ruled that a newspaper couldn’t pay for a debate, since that wojuld be a corporate political donation. So Reagan voluntered to - and did - pay for it himself, under debate event rules explained on site as the debate got underway. Rules Reagan didn’t like.
At one point, things started to spin out of control between Reagan and Green. The publisher, in an irritated voice, asked the sound man to turn off Reagan’s microphone.
“I am paying for this microphone, Mr. Green!” an indignant Reagan shouted back. The microphone stayed on.
Similarly, taxpayers paid for the Gaetz report and this investigation of a public official. They have every right to see it whether he is still a member of the House or not.
(4) Gaetz had just been nominated by the President-elect to be America’s new Attorney General. If there was a completed investigation - with conclusions - by a bipartisan ethics committee into allegations against Gaetz the American people not only had a right, but an urgent need to see it, because of what it would tell us about how carefully the president-elect was being as he selected and nominated members of his cabinet especially one as important at Attorney General.
Turns out Gaetz was a dangerous, reckless nominee. Had he actually gotten the job, he would have had a metaphoric “flashing neon sign” with an arrow pointing right at him hanging directly over his head that read “Blackmail Me!” every day he was Attorney General.
Fourth, what was likely to be in that report was no secret. Of course most House members knew it was likely to be a disaster for Gaetz - a career-ender, even in the Age of Reagan.
Gaetz anticipated as much, himself, by quitting the House before his confirmation was barely started in a last ditch effort to keep the report from reaching the public.
House colleagues knew he was a womanizer - with very young women - because his own Republican colleagues say he bragged about it on the House floor, complete with photographs on his smart phone.
Former Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy - who like most other House Republicans did not like Gaetz - talked openly and bitterly about Gaetz’s ethical shortcomings. The only way any House member would not have known there was likely very bad news for Gaetz in that report would have been if they had slept through much of the last few years.
Who decides that, in all those circumstances, the right thing to do is help Gaetz hide the report, and keep the public in the dark? Iowa’s House Republicans and the rest of the House Republican Caucus - unthinking partisans all - that’s who.
Iowans need to know and remember that all four Iowan in the US House are not bewildered by any of this. They voted for it.
They did so knowingly, in an attempt to bamboozle the public and keep secret “substantial evidence” and bipartisan conclusions reached by Gaetz’s own colleagues, based on a long investigation that there was deep corruption and it was sordid and ugly.
This is the latest measure of just how low Iowa’s all Republican US House delegation will stoop to pursue partisanship, in a House that is deeply divided and that desperately needs unity from people who know what’s right and will do it. Their excessive partisanship - which now even winks at, and tries to hide, the stench of corruption - needs to stop.
If we learned anything from Trump’s first term, and his transition to a second, it is that this will not be the last time Iowa’s delegation will come face to face with corruption from members of their own party and an administration held by their own political allies.
More of these choices - to stand with corruption, or fight against it - are undoubtedly ahead as another Trump administration comes to town. These choices need not be difficult ones. Just do what is right.
Now would be a good time for each US House member from Iowa to decide what they are going to do the next time they encounter sleeze and corruption head on.
They need to do better. Much, much better.
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Mr. Religious Self Righteous NW Iowa representative seems very willing to push ethics and honesty aside when it is convenient for him.
Much much better. You are so right, Barry. Unfortunately, I don’t see a single spark of ethical knowledge or consideration emanating from our four representatives. It is so discouraging that Iowans could choose these people to represent us. Thank you for continuing to put this lack of integrity in front of us, and hold them accountable.