CHRIS CRUCIAL: Will we ever see the Gaetz report? 📚

PLUS: Seth Moulton spits some truth bombs 💣💣💣

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1. Blocking Gaetz 🛑

The House Ethics Committee was supposed to meet today amid the swirl of controversy caused by Donald Trump’s nomination of Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz to be Attorney General.

That meeting was abruptly canceled postponed— without explanation. But what we’ve learned is that the planned agenda for that gathering was to vote on whether or not to release what the New York Times described as a “highly critical” report regarding a slew of allegations — including sex with a minor and illegal drug use — against Gaetz.

Gaetz resigned from Congress earlier this week. (No other House member or U.S. Senator nominated by Trump to a Cabinet post has resigned.) With Gaetz no longer a member of the House, the Ethics Committee does not have jurisdiction over him — meaning that the report on his conduct may never see the light of day.

That’s if Speaker Mike Johnson has anything to do with it. On Friday, Johnson told reporters that he was “going to strongly request that the Ethics Committee not issue the report,” adding that doing so would be “a terrible breach of protocol.”

Johnson went on:

What I’m saying is, if someone is no longer a member of Congress, we are not in the business of investigating and publishing reports about people who are not part of this institutions. The House Ethics Committee’s jurisdiction is over sitting members of Congress. I think if you think about it, this will make sense to everybody.

(Worth noting: Johnson made the remarks Friday — just hours after he returned from Mar-a-Lago. 👀)

Johnson’s comments also came just a day after House Ethics Committee Chairman Michael Guest said he had no plans to release the Gaetz report.

“What happens in Ethics is confidential. We're going to maintain that confidentiality,” Guest said Thursday.

Which is a view!

I mean, I would argue that the Ethics committee’s finding on these serious allegations would be relevant to whether or not we should make Gaetz the most powerful law enforcement official in the country. But I’m no lawyer! (Although I am well versed in bird law.)

Can Republicans stone-wall on Gaetz? Democrats are trying to find a way around it — and get their hands on the report.

“I am calling on the House Ethics Committee to preserve and share their report and all relevant documentation on Mr. Gaetz with the Senate Judiciary Committee,” said Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, the top ranking Democrat on the panel.

And Axios reported this week that House Democrats on the Ethics Committee are trying to get the report out too:

Democrats on the committee are exploring whether they have the ability to formally release the report themselves, sources familiar with the matter told Axios.

The panel's membership is split 50-50 between the two parties and generally needs a majority – meaning at least one Republican joining all Democrats – in order to take action.

Democrats got help from an unlikely source on Thursday when Texas Republican Sen. John Cornyn, who just the day before had come within a few votes of being elected Senate Majority Leader, said he thought the Judiciary Committee should have access to the report.

“Absolutely,” Cornyn said when asked about whether he wanted to see the report. “I don't want there to be any limitation at all on what the Senate could consider.”

To be clear: Durbin or Cornyn (or any other Senator) calling for the House Ethics Committee to release the Gaetz report doesn’t actually do much — except maybe exert some slight public pressure — to change the positions staked out by Johnson and Guest.

And it’s not at all clear what the procedures are (or whether any procedures even exist) by which Democrats — and Republicans like Cornyn — could actually force the House Ethics Committee to show them the report.

My default view of ALL secret files and reports is that they always come out — somehow. But that’s not based on any specific knowledge of this report in particular.

The thing to watch is whether other Senate Republicans jump on board with Cornyn and demand to see the report. That sort of public pressure from members of their own party is probably the only thing that could change minds.

2. Seth Moulton speaks some truth

You may not know who Seth Moulton is. But you should.

Moulton is a four-term Democratic House member from Massachusetts. His resume is incredibly impressive — Harvard undergrad, Harvard Business School, captain in the Marine Corps and an Iraq war vet.

And Moulton, since 2016, has been a voice urging Democrats to elevate a new generation of leaders. He even ran for president — briefly and unsuccessfully in 2019.

Since Trump’s victory 10 days ago, Moulton has been one of the most outspoken voices in his party — insisting that Democrats simply have not yet fully grasped the defeat that voters handed them.

In an interview on CNN on Friday morning, Moulton said this when asked whether his party was underestimating its own problems:

I think there’s a lot of Democrats going around, especially in the House, justifying how we did by saying, ‘Oh we did a little bit better than Harris.’ But let’s put this in perspective. Okay, the Republican Party has been in a civil war for the last year, the Trump faction with traditional Republicans, culminating in the House where we couldn’t even have a Speaker. They couldn’t elect a Speaker for three weeks, alright? This party is led by a convicted felon. So Democrats should’ve had the easiest election in our lifetime. We should have cleaned up from president of the United States to local school board, Democrats should have swept this and yet we got defeated across the board, so seriously, we lost big. And we’ve got to come to grips with that if we’re going to be willing to change.

Will Democrats listen? Count me skeptical. Moulton made national headlines in the immediate aftermath of the election when he said this to the New York Times:

Democrats spend way too much time trying not to offend anyone rather than being brutally honest about the challenges many Americans face. I have two little girls, I don’t want them getting run over on a playing field by a male or formerly male athlete, but as a Democrat I’m supposed to be afraid to say that.

Moulton’s campaign manager abruptly quit. The mayor of Salem condemned Moulton’s remarks. A state representative named John Moran did the same — writing: “No, Seth Moulton, the only thing we here in Massachusetts shouldn’t be afraid to say is that you should find another job if you want to use an election loss as an opportunity to pick on our most vulnerable. Weak!”

So, yeah. I’ve said this before but will say it again: The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Which appears to be what at least some Democrats are committed to doing

3. Friday AMA

I spent an hour Friday afternoon taking questions at my YouTube channel. If you haven’t subscribed yet, do it! I am almost to 50,000 subs!

NOTABLE QUOTABLE

“I'm just not gonna spend my day talking about everything that happens.” — Kansas Republican Sen. Jerry Moran, dodging a reporter’s question about AG nominee Matt Gaetz

ONE GOOD CHART

It’s Friday. And we are less than two weeks away from Thanksgiving. So this classic, uh, pie chart seemed appropriate.

SONG OF THE DAY

It’s been six years since Wussy (that’s the band’s name!) released new music. During that time, the band’s guitarist, Jon Erhardt, passed away. Their new album is called “Cincinnati Ohio” — and I love it. This is “Inhaler.”

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