House Ethics Committee Chairman Michael Guest (R-MS) signaled his committee is likely to ignore Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-LA) recommendation to withhold releasing its investigation of Matt Gaetz (R-FL).
Matt Gaetz, who stepped down after President-elect Donald Trump announced his nomination for Attorney General, is no longer a member of the House and therefore no longer under the committee’s purview. Johnson has openly opposed the release of the report and urged the committee to withhold it, a sentiment he relayed personally to Guest over the weekend, the chairman told Politico.
“I appreciate Mike reaching out,” Guest told Politico. “I don’t see it having an impact on what we as a committee ultimately decide.”
The committee meets Wednesday, where it is expected to discuss whether or not to release its report on Gaetz.
The Ethics Committee — which, lacking a legislative jurisdiction, provides its members no capability to extract campaign funds from the donor class — is not highly sought after by members of Congress and is generally seen as a chore. Its members usually serve by request of their party’s respective leader and are usually appointed for their loyalty to leadership — often in exchange for other favors quietly bestowed by leadership.
The fiery Gaetz has been a thorn in leadership’s side since arriving in Washington, consistently targeting entrenched interests and corruption in Washington. Most notably, Gaetz led the ouster of former Speaker Kevin McCarthy.
Gaetz has denied wrongdoing and argues the Ethics investigation is retaliation for robbing McCarthy of his gavel.
At a CPAC event earlier in 2024, Gaetz blasted congressional stock trading practices, singling out Guest for his trading record.
“For the same reason you don’t let the umpire bet on the game, members of congress should not be allowed to trade individual stocks,” he said. “How about the Ethics Committee take up those reforms?”
Gaetz, pointing out that Guest voted for the establishment of the January 6 Commission to target Trump, then specifically addressed the Ethics Committee chairman.
“He has become a brilliant stock trader while in office, and I admire the obvious genius,” Gaetz said of Guest. “He knew exactly the right time to buy online gambling stocks. His purchase in Evolution Gaming Securities netted him a hefty 36 percent gain — not too shabby. Now, I’m not saying this is insider trading, but this monetary affair is perhaps the most suspicious I’ve seen since Fani Willis and Nathan Wade,” a reference to the Fulton County District Attorney and her reported paramour and top prosecutor in her case against Trump.
Wade was forced by a judge to resign from the case after his alleged affair with Willis, which predated his appointment to the case, came to light.
Gaetz, who, while in Congress, might have been the only Republican member to swear off accepting campaign contributions from PACs, emphasized the importance of rooting out public corruption while in Congress — a focus Trump says he wants Gaetz to carry with him to the DOJ.
As Attorney General, Gaetz would oversee federal investigations into members of Congress for insider trading or other corruption — including Guest.
Gaetz has also criticized Guest for a 2021 incident in which test alerted the Ethics Committee that he had failed to disclose a family stock. Guest paid a $200 fine for disclosing the stock eight months late.
As Guest warms towards releasing the report, Trump has made it clear he is prioritizing Gaetz’s confirmation, personally pressuring senators to confirm Gaetz, Axios reported Monday.
“He clearly wants Matt Gaetz,” Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-ND), who received a call from Trump, told the outlet. “He believes Matt Gaetz is the one person who will have the fearlessness and ferociousness, really, to do what needs doing at the Department of Justice.”
While Guest has defied Trump previously, most notably by voting for the January 6 Commission, Guest’s open defiance of the Speaker of the House is unusual for a chairman. (Guest said Monday he has not heard from a member of the Trump administration, and Trump has not specifically addressed whether the report should be released.) Yet all the Republican members of the committee were seated before Johnson’s speakership began — notably, each while McCarthy, who was ousted by Gaetz, led House Republicans.
The committee is evenly split between Republicans and Democrats and requires only a majority vote to release the report. With Democrats almost certain to vote to release a report that would embarrass Trump’s priority nominee (Rep. Susan Wild (D-PA) the committee’s top Democrat, has said she favors doing so), only one Republican vote would be needed.
Republicans on the committee in addition to Guest are Reps. David Joyce (R-OH), John Rutherford (R-FL), Andrew Garbarino (R-NY), and Michelle Fischbach (R-MN).
Releasing the report would not be the first time the Republican-chaired committee handicapped the GOP this Congress.
In 2023, the committee broke decades of precedent by releasing its investigation into Republican Rep. George Santos (R-NY) despite the congressman not yet having his day in court for his alleged crimes. The report led to Santos’s expulsion from Congress after prior attempts had failed.
When the House last expelled a member, Rep. Jim Traficant (D-OH) in 2002, it did so only after Traficant was found guilty in court. The Ethics Committee then did not even begin an investigation until Traficant’s court case had concluded.
The loss of Santos’s reliable conservative vote cost Republicans. Most notably, the House embarrassingly failed by a single vote to impeach Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
Meanwhile, this Congress, the Republican-chaired committee chose not to take action against Democrat Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY), despite the congressman pleading guilty after pulling a fire alarm in a House office building that disrupted a House vote — allegedly to prevent House Republicans from passing a spending bill while Senate Democrats readied a package of their own, a potential felony.
Guest has served as the top Republican on the committee since August 2022, taking over for former Rep. Jackie Walorski after her death, and has chaired the committee since January 2023.
He is eligible to continue leading the committee next Congress. The powerful Republican Steering Committee, of which the Speaker holds the most votes in addition to significant influence, is scheduled to meet in early December to select the chairman and members of the Ethics Committee, among other committees.
Johnson explained after Gaetz stepped down that he did so due to a Florida state law that gives an “8-week period to select and fill a vacant seat.”
“If you start the clock now, if you do the math, we may be able to fill that seat as early as Jan. 3 when we take the new oath of office for the new Congress,” he said of Gaetz’s reasoning.
With some races remaining to be called, Republicans are projected to have a small majority and will need every vote to advance Trump’s legislative agenda.
Bradley Jaye is a Capitol Hill Correspondent for Breitbart News. Follow him on X/Twitter at @BradleyAJaye.
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