Matt Gaetz Resigns from Congress – JP

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) resigned from Congress following his nomination for U.S. Attorney General.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) said the development “caught us by surprise a little bit. But I asked him what the reasoning was, and he said, well, you can’t have too many absences.”

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has about 8 weeks to fill the seat.

“If we start the clock now, if you do the math, we may be able to fill that seat as early as January 3, when we take the new oath of office for the new Congress,” Johnson said. “So Matt would have done us a great service by making that decision as he did on the fly, and so we’re grateful for that.”

Gaetz’s resignation also led to the end of a years-long investigation by the House Ethics Committee. The Committee was investigating allegations of sexual misconduct, illicit drug use, and other accusations.

In a September letter to the Ethics Committee, Gaetz wrote that the investigation “exists to do what the voters of my district won’t – remove me from office. The Committee’s own membership tried to remove me from office via election. That failed, so this is the next iteration of the smear.”

In nominating Gaetz, President-elect Donald Trump said the congressman is a “deeply gifted and tenacious attorney, trained at the William & Mary College of Law, who has distinguished himself in Congress through his focus on achieving desperately needed reform at the Department of Justice. Few issues in America are more important than ending the partisan Weaponization of our Justice System.”