The much talked about House Ethics Committee report on Bratty Matty Gaetz is staying in the safe. For now. A motion to force it’s release just failed so Gaetz is breathing a sigh of relief. However, if he thought he was out of the woods and Trump would find some other gig for him it seems he’d be better off just fading away. Maybe for a gig at a think tank like Heritage or something. I say that because it seems not just Democrats but some of Gaetz’s former Republican colleagues in the House have made it clear there are ‘more bullets in the Ethics gun and they aren’t putting that gun away.’
Axios is reporting that at least one GOP Representative has gone public. Don Bacon of Nebraska says that if Trump tries to put Gaetz in some other WH job all bets are off. Axios says Bacon told them while a whole bunch of Republicans felt they should follow precedents (more on that in a bit) if Gaetz is put up for some senior position this whole thing will come back. In other words all bets will be OFF.
As for those ‘precedents’ Bacon referred to, and which led House Republicans to vote yesterday to keep the Gaetz report sealed up it’s bullshit. Speaker Moses Mikey Johnson of course claimed that with Bratty Matty no longer under their jurisdiction it would be “unprecedented” to release any ethics report. However, Democrat Sean Casten of Illinois begged to differ and just so everyone present and about to cast a vote knew the score he pointed out some truths the GOP didn’t want on the record. Per Axios:
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Casten slammed the notion that it would break precedent, posting on X: “The House Ethics Committee released reports on former Members in the 1980s, the 1990s & the 2000s. But House Republicans know this.”
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“I laid out these precedents in my resolution that was read aloud in front of the full House moments before they voted to hide the Gaetz Report,” he added.
Speaker Jeffries chimed in on the matter as well. He said it will be an ongoing matter of public interest. He too mentioned the possibility of Gaetz being picked by Trump for some other important job. It was a not at all subtle way of telling Gaetz that Democrats will sure as hell be ready to join with Republicans who want Gaetz to just STFU and go away. Far away.
I keep going back to what Rep. Bacon said about lots of others being like him. Being willing to, if Gaetz talks Trump into helping him mount a ‘come back’ deciding that while not common precedent for releasing a report on a FORMER member has been set. And repeated. Gaetz made more enemies than friends during his tenure. While the bulk of House Republicans don’t fall into either camp most just wish they didn’t have to deal with him or his antics at all. It’s abundantly clear how far Gaetz will go to keep that Ethics report from seeing the light of day. He ousted a Speaker over the matter and instigated all manner of grief for his caucus. Then he even resigned his seat!  It’s not Gaetz’s neck they’re holding a sword over, it’s another part of his anatomy. The one that got him into this mess to begin with!
Any sensible person in Gaetz’s position would just walk away and, like I said find a job at some think tank and become a ‘behind the scenes’ player. He’s rich after all thanks to his daddy. Hell, he could comfortably retire down there in Florida if he wanted to right now and live a better life than most of us. I’ll bet odds makers in Vegas already have a line on whether Gaetz will push this and wind up causing his former colleagues to dump that report into the public domain. Gaetz is arrogant enough to probably force the issue. If he’s betting they don’t have the guts to put out the report, I think he’s going to lose. Bigly to put it in Trump terms. One can hope some of the mess gets on Trump too!
You know when republicans are speaking either for or against ‘precedence’, they’re lying.
The precedent they HAVE set is to do what is most politically advantageous to them right then.
Well, that’s ALWAYS been the Republicon concept of “precedent.” I mean, when Clinton was facing a lawsuit brought by Paula Jones (while Clinton was president and the events Jones’ suit dealt with predated Clinton’s 1993 inauguration), the GOP was all “No one’s above the law” and even SCOTUS was largely in agreement. But, when it came to Trump, then it was “Precedent? What’s precedent?”
When Harry Truman tikd his biographer that Richard Nixon was the only person he had ever knew who could talk out of both sides of his mouth and lie out of both sides at the same time, he likely never anticipated a whole crop of rethug politicians about whom his claim would also be valid.