Gaetz had sued the ethics committee and its chair on Monday in a last-minute bid to preemptively block the discharge of the report.
The Home Ethics Committee unveiled its report into the previous conduct of former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) on Dec. 23 after he filed a lawsuit in federal courtroom to dam its launch.
The report alleges that Gaetz paid tens of hundreds of {dollars} to girls for medicine or intercourse in not less than 20 cases, together with paying a 17-year-old woman for intercourse in 2017.
“The Committee decided there may be substantial proof that Consultant Gaetz violated Home Guidelines and different requirements of conduct prohibiting prostitution, statutory rape, illicit drug use, impermissible presents, particular favors or privileges, and obstruction of Congress,” panel investigators wrote.
Now that Gaetz has resigned from Congress, he argued within the lawsuit that the Home Ethics Committee is reaching past its constitutional authority as a result of it lacks jurisdiction over him as a non-public citizen. His attorneys keep the report consists of “untruthful and defamatory data” that would “considerably injury” Gaetz’s standing and popularity.
The lawsuit, filed in federal courtroom in Washington, names the Ethics Committee and its chair, Rep. Michael Visitor (R-Miss.), as defendants.
“The Committee’s obvious intention to launch its report after explicitly acknowledging it lacks jurisdiction over former members, its failure to observe constitutional notions of due course of, and failure to stick to its personal procedural guidelines and precedent represents an unprecedented overreach that threatens basic constitutional rights and established procedural protections,” Gaetz’s attorneys wrote.
The Epoch Occasions contacted the Home Ethics Committee and Visitor for remark. The ethics committee declined to remark.
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