The committee on ethical houses remembers rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., For a 2019 tweet against Michael Cohen that suggested the former lawyer against President Trump was unfaithful to his wife and had “girlfriends.”
Gaetz had already apologized for the tweet he gave for Cohen’s testimony before Congress and said his words were not intended to be interpreted as a threat to a witness. On Friday, he took the robbery “with humility”, while also noting his big primary election victory earlier this week.
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“The ethics committee has given me a statement,” Gaetz said in a statement to Fox News. “My fellow Republicans from Northwest Florida gave me 81 percent of the vote on Tuesday. I accept both with humility. ”
Representative Matt Gaetz, R-Fla.
Following an ethics inquiry, the two-party panel voted unanimously to forgive the Republicans of ‘Florida’ for his conduct and behavior, but refused to take any tougher action.
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The ethics committee’s report released Friday said Gaetz’s actions violated Code of Conduct rules that members “must behave at all times in a manner that reliably reflects on the Second Credit.” The ethics panel said the rule applies to electronic communications and House members are “warned to exercise sound judgment when using social media.”
Ethical research, however, did not find that Gaetz tampered with or hindered a congressional witness.
Gaetz deleted the original tweet directed at Cohen, in which he wrote: “Do you know your wife and father-in-law about your girlfriends? Maybe tonight would be a good time for that conversation. I wonder if she stays faithful when you are in prison. She is about to learn a lot … ”
Gaetz had earlier apologized to Cohen and his family and the commission’s report took up the “remorse” of the congressman.
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“I want to say in public what I said privately to Michael Cohen and his family, that I’m sorry,” Gaetz told Fox News on March 1.
“It is very appropriate to test the truth of a witness, but that could have been done in a way that does not call anyone’s family, and I should not have done it.”
In this February 27, 2019, file photo, Michael Cohen, the former attorney general of President Donald Trump, testifies before the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, on Capitol Hill in Washington. Mueller found some evidence in the redacted report released Thursday, April 18, suggesting that Trump may have intended to discourage Cohen from cooperating. But he did not come to a conclusion about whether Trump is obstructing justice. (AP photo / Alex Brandon, file)
Cohen has been convicted of several charges, including damage from campaign funding related to household payments made to women who claimed he had affairs with Trump in the past. He began serving his work sentence in May 2019 and was scheduled to be released in November 2021, but he was released to prison at home this year.
Lanny J. Davis, who represented Cohen, dismissed Gaetz’s tweet at the time as a shameful lie and one that would not sit well with the Floridians representing the legislature.
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“We will not respond to Mr. Gaetz’s contemptuous lies and personal pains, except to say that we trust that his colleagues in the House, both Republicans and Democrats, will reflect on his words and his views and again,” Davis said. in a statement to Fox News.
“I also trust that his constituencies will not appreciate that their congressman has set a new low – one that is hard to imagine in today’s political culture.”
Fox News’s Brooke Singman, Chad Pergram and Stephen Sorace have contributed to this report.
