How Matt Gaetz poisoned the House Ethics Committee

Scandal-ridden former Rep. Matt Gaetz is gone from Congress, but the wounds he inflicted on the House Ethics Committee that investigated him remain fresh.

After the longest delay in recent history, the panel finally recruited enough members to perform its grim mandate of governing fellow lawmakers’ conduct in the 119th Congress. And they’ll have their work cut out for them: The committee is still regrouping from its crisis late last year over whether to break with recent precedent and release the results of an investigation into their former Florida GOP colleague, who was being considered for attorney general.

The Ethics Committee rarely releases findings of investigations into lawmakers who resign before those investigations can conclude. Gaetz tested that practice, with lawmakers on both sides arguing the information was critical for senators to review in advance of his confirmation hearings.