The House Ethics Committee admonished Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida on Friday for a tweet he posted last year about Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer.
The day before Cohen appeared before the House Oversight and Reform Committee in February 2019, Gaetz posted, “Do your wife & father-in-law know about your girlfriends? Maybe tonight would be a good time for that chat. I wonder if she’ll remain faithful when you’re in prison. She’s about to learn a lot.”
Gaetz later apologized for the tweet and deleted it.
Democratic Rep. Kathleen Rice of New York sent a letter to the ethics panel at the time raising concerns that the tweet could constitute witness tampering and intimidation. The committee started an investigation into the matter in June 2019.
In a report released Friday, the Ethics committee found that Gaetz’s tweet “did not violate witness tampering and obstruction of Congress laws,” but his actions “did not reflect creditably upon the House of Representatives, in violation of House Rule XXIII, clause 1 of the Code of Official Conduct.”
The Ethics Committee will take no further action on the issue, the report said. The report argues that Gaetz’s tweet was worth reviewing. It also notes, however, that “the Committee is not the social media police.”
“The Committee has acknowledged that the fast-pace and wide dissemination of electronic communications, while in some ways a boon to greater transparency between Members and their constituents, can lead to embarrassing mistakes and unintended consequences,” the report states, cautioning members to “exercise sound judgment when using social media.”
CNN’s Ashley Killough contributed to this report.