The panel, which has been quietly investigating Gaetz for more than three years, is under mounting pressure to make its report public, or at least share it with the senators responsible for vetting Gaetz’s appointment to lead the Justice Department.

But doing so risks a backlash from Republicans who say the committee no longer has jurisdiction over Gaetz following his resignation from the House last week. At the same time, Ethics members could be perceived as quashing the report on President-elect Donald Trump’s behalf if they keep it under wraps.

No matter how the Ethics Committee proceeds on Wednesday, when members will meet to discuss a path forward, the report has long been caught up in congressional politics. Kevin McCarthy claims that Gaetz voted to remove him as speaker last year as retribution for the ethics investigation.

But the decision has only gotten harder since Trump chose Gaetz for attorney general. The Ethics Committee rarely releases reports for former members of Congress, but it must weigh that precedent against the Senate’s countervailing interest in fully reviewing Trump’s nominees.

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The report could have explosive consequences for Gaetz, who stands accused of having sex with a 17-year-old. He denies all allegations of misconduct, but the investigation has cast a cloud of controversy over his nomination.

For the Ethics Committee, the report threatens to damage its reputation of impartiality. It is the only body in the House made up of an equal number of Republicans and Democrats.

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) initially declined to get involved in the decision on Thursday, regarding it as a matter of the committee’s independence. But he has since publicly and repeatedly called for the report not to be released.

Meanwhile, Democrats have been discussing ways to get their hands on its contents before Republicans take control of the Senate in January. That could include asking the FBI for its materials on Gaetz after it declined to charge him as part of a separate sex trafficking investigation.

Gaetz maintained his innocence in that inquiry, too.

The fight over Gaetz’s ethics report is not entirely partisan. Senate Republicans, particularly those on the Judiciary Committee, want to see the contents of the report as part of the confirmation process.

Still, the debate has thrust the Ethics Committee into the middle of a brewing debate over the fitness of Trump’s nominees that more closely falls along party lines.

Democrats have dismissed Gaetz as wholly unfit, citing the allegations and his slash-and-burn style of politics. Republicans, especially in the Senate, have expressed a dose of skepticism but are signaling greater openness to his nomination.

The Ethics Committee was two days away from voting on whether to share its findings when Gaetz resigned last week, prompting speculation that he resigned to avoid the report’s release. 

But Gaetz could still face a drip, drip of allegations. An attorney for two of the women who testified before the committee earlier this year told ABC on Monday that Gaetz paid them for sex.

Lawmakers also acknowledge the distinct possibility that the report leaks, whether it is formally made public or not.

For now, Republicans on the House Ethics Committee are being tight-lipped about their plans. But they are under an immense amount of pressure as the Trump transition claims the allegations are politically motivated.

“Matt Gaetz will be the next Attorney General. He’s the right man for the job and will end the weaponization of our justice system,” Alex Pfeiffer, a spokesman for the Trump transition, told the Washington Examiner. “These are baseless allegations intended to derail the second Trump administration. The Biden Justice Department investigated Gaetz for years and cleared him of wrongdoing.”

Meanwhile, the Democrats have claimed that Johnson and other congressional Republicans are doing Trump’s bidding by trying to block the report. Johnson denies that he has spoken with the president-elect about the ethics investigation, or that he is putting his thumb on the scale in the House.

“I have not dictated anything to the Ethics Committee. It is not my place to do so,” Johnson said on Monday at the Capitol. “I’m merely responding to the questions that every single media outlet in America is asking me: Do I think a report, if it exists, should be released? And the answer is no because we have a rule on that.”

It is not unheard of for the Ethics Committee to release the findings of House members who have resigned. Ethics reports on former Reps. Bill Boner and Mark Foley were made public after they stepped down.

But Johnson has characterized those as exceptions rather than the precedent, warning of opening “Pandora’s box” if the Gaetz report is released. 

“If a precedent was broken 30 years ago, I would have disagreed with it then as well,” Johnson said on Monday.

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Rep. Susan Wild (D-PA), the top Democrat on the Ethics Committee, told reporters on Monday that she supports the report being released to both the Senate and the public.

“Typically for confirmation hearings, the Senate has gotten whatever it’s wanted from wherever it’s wanted it,” said Rep. Glenn Ivey (D-MD), a member of the Ethics Committee.