Some House Republican members are reportedly preparing to file a motion to expel Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) from Congress pending a forthcoming report from the House Ethics Committee about his alleged behavior.
The news comes as Gaetz prepares to file a motion to oust Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) this week in what many top Republicans say is a personal vendetta against McCarthy because of the Ethics Committee investigation, which was launched during the last Congress when Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) was Speaker.
CNN reported over the summer that investigators are currently “focused on allegations that he may have engaged in sexual misconduct, illicit drug use or other misconduct.”
When Democrats launched the probe in 2021, they announced that they were looking into allegations that Gaetz “may have engaged in sexual misconduct and/or illicit drug use, shared inappropriate images or videos on the House floor, misused state identification records, converted campaign funds to personal use, and/or accepted a bribe, improper gratuity, or impermissible gift.”
Fox News reported on Sunday that House Republican members will “will seek to expel Gaetz if the ethics committee report comes back with findings of guilt.”
“No one can stand him at this point,” one member told Fox News. “A smart guy without morals.”
Gaetz has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing and responded to Fox News’ report with the following post on X:
https://t.co/e8ECYirYhM pic.twitter.com/CnU3DEaz1p
— Matt Gaetz (@mattgaetz) October 1, 2023
One lawmaker who came out and defended Gaetz was Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL), who posted on X that it was “UNETHICAL to threaten to expel a member for following and using house rules that the ENTIRE conference agreed too.”
Gaetz took significant heat late last week for handling leverage to Democrat lawmakers by sabotaging a short-term funding bill that would have kept the U.S. government open and included “a spending reduction, money for border security, and a commission on the growing federal debt,” The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board noted.
Instead, Republicans did not get any of that becauses Gaetz and several other Republicans rejected it and they were forced to cut a deal with Democrats to keep the government open.
“The only way he can be successful is if he has 200 plus Democrats,” Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith (R-MO) said during an interview on Sunday. “Basically, Gaetz is going to work with Nancy Pelosi, Hakeem Jeffries, and the rest of the Democrats in order to remove the Republican speaker… If you remove a Republican speaker, that then puts the Democrats in power, these investigations will be done and stalled. That is unacceptable of Matt Gaetz.”
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich posted on X: “Is Gaetz secretly an agent for the Democratic Party? No one else is doing as much to undermine, weaken and cripple the House GOP.”
Conservative media personality Mark Levin said Gaetz and the others “sabotaged” the conservative spending bill. “They rant and rave without a plan and without a real objective and now we get this 45 day CR,” Levin said. “THEY did this. And predictably, they desperately blame everyone else.”
Conservatives got the whole of the House GOP to agree to cut the government by 8% as their opening negotiation with the Senate, but Matt Gaetz decided his grudge against Speaker McCarthy was more important. So he helped scuttle cuts, and now the government is going to grow.
— Erick Erickson (@EWErickson) September 30, 2023