House Ethics Committee secretly voted to release Matt Gaetz ethics report, source says

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House Ethics Committee secretly voted to release Matt Gaetz ethics report, source says

2024-12-19 01:39 Last Updated At：01:40

WASHINGTON (AP) — The House Ethics Committee voted in secret to release the long-awaited ethics report into ex-Rep. Matt Gaetz, raising the possibility that the allegations against the Florida Republican who was President-elect Donald Trump's first choice for attorney general could be made public in the coming days.

The decision by the bipartisan committee was made earlier this month, according to a person familiar with the vote who was not authorized to publicly discuss the matter and spoke on condition of anonymity Wednesday. CNN first reported the vote.

It's a stunning turnaround for the often secretive panel of five Republicans and five Democrats. Just last month, members voted along party lines to not release the findings of their nearly four-year investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct with minors and use of illicit drugs while Gaetz was in office.

Democrats had pressed to make the report public even though Gaetz was no longer in Congress and had withdrawn as Trump's pick to lead the Justice Department. A vote on the House floor this month to force the report's release failed; all but one Republican voted against it.

Gaetz lashed out Wedneday on social media against the latest development, again denying any wrongdoing. He criticized the committee for its move after he had left Congress, saying he would have “no opportunity to debate or rebut as a former member of the body.”

“It’s embarrassing, though not criminal, that I probably partied, womanized, drank and smoked more than I should have earlier in life,” Gaetz posted on X, the website formerly known as Twitter. “I live a different life now.”

Most Republicans have argued that any congressional investigation into Gaetz ended when he resigned from the House. Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., also requested that the committee not publish its report, saying it would be a terrible precedent.

While ethics reports have previously been released after a member’s resignation, it is extremely rare.

Gaetz has noted that the Justice Department’s separate investigation against him into sex trafficking allegations involving underage girls ended last year without federal charges.

Onetime political ally Joel Greenberg, a fellow Republican who served as the tax collector in Florida’s Seminole County, admitted as part of a plea deal with prosecutors in 2021 that he paid women and an underage girl to have sex with him and other men. The men were not identified in court documents when he pleaded guilty. Greenberg was sentenced in late 2022 to 11 years in prison.

Families scramble to help after deadly cyclone rips through French territory of Mayotte off Africa

2024-12-19 01:21 Last Updated At：01:30

MAMOUDZOU, Mayotte (AP) — Relatives of families struggling after Cyclone Chido ripped through the French island territory of Mayotte expressed helplessness Wednesday, a day before France’s president and another 180 tons of aid were expected to arrive.

Some survivors and aid groups have described hasty burials, the stench of bodies and the devastation of precarious informal settlements whose population of migrants makes it even more challenging to determine the number of dead.

“A catastrophe of exceptional intensity,” French authorities said in an update Wednesday. “The island is devastated.” It noted 31 confirmed deaths but said the Muslim practice of burial within 24 hours could mean the real toll is quite different.

Mayotte, in the Indian Ocean off Africa’s east coast, is France’s poorest territory and a magnet for migrants hoping to reach Europe. Already, France's interior minister this week has proposed cracking down.

The cyclone on Saturday was the deadliest storm to strike the territory in nearly a century. It devastated entire neighborhoods on the collection of islands with winds that exceeded 220 kph (136 mph), according to the French weather service. Many people had ignored cyclone warnings, thinking the storm would not be so extreme.

Now residents pick their way across a landscape in search of food as telecommunications remain tenuous and even sturdily built structures including health centers have been damaged.

Driving the streets of Mayotte, AP reporters saw destroyed houses, felled trees and people lining up for water. Dozens of French military personnel set up a makeshift camp at the airport.

French Prime Minister François Bayrou on Tuesday said more than 1,500 people were injured, including more than 200 critically, but authorities fear hundreds and possibly thousands of people have died. Authorities said about 100,000 lived in a “precarious situation.”

On the French island of Reunion about a three-hour flight away, loved ones were coming together to donate aid for survivors. Some said their families in Mayotte had no food or water and roofs were blown off houses. It had taken days to make contact with some.

“It is difficult because I feel helpless,” said Khayra Djoumoi Thany, 19.

Anrafa Parassouramin also has family in Mayotte. “We are also afraid of disease outbreaks, because people are drinking water from wherever they can get it, and it’s not necessarily potable water,” she said.

Health Minister Geneviève Darrieussecq has raised concerns about the risk of a cholera epidemic on the archipelago which earlier this year had an outbreak of a highly drug-resistant strain of the disease.

French authorities said the distribution of 23 tons of water began Wednesday.

The French minister for overseas matters, François-Noël Buffet, told French radio Europe 1 that aid brought by plane has started being allocated to locations across Mayotte.

The minister said the water supply system was “working at 50%” and presented a risk of “poor quality.” Electricity had partially resumed.

Mayotte’s hospital was badly damaged. A field hospital should be operational by early next week, Buffet said.

A Navy ship was due to arrive in Mayotte on Thursday with 180 tons of aid and equipment, according to the French military. But the main airport could not accept commercial flights because of damage. The road network was also widely damaged.

French President Emmanuel Macron will travel to Mayotte on Thursday and visit a hospital and a destroyed neighborhood, his office said. “Our compatriots are living through the worst just a few thousand kilometers away,” Macron said in a statement.

Some residents of Mayotte have long criticized the French government of neglect.

On Tuesday evening, a program on public broadcaster France 2 raised 5 million euros ($5.24 million) in aid for Mayotte through the Foundation of France charity, the channel said.

Corbet reported from Paris.

House Ethics Committee secretly voted to release Matt Gaetz ethics report, source says

News

House Ethics Committee secretly voted to release Matt Gaetz ethics report, source says

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