A former Republican chairman of the House Ethics Committee said, “Matt Gaetz has a real problem here” after the committee released a damning report Monday on its investigation into the former Republican congressman from Florida, who was originally picked by Donald Trump to be attorney general .

The report by the bipartisan House Ethics Committee found “substantial evidence” that Gaetz had violated statutory rape laws and engaged in a broader pattern of paying women for sex, and found evidence of illegal drug use, accepting inappropriate gifts, granting special favors to personal employees, etc. obstructing the investigation.

“This is clearly about sex, money and drugs. And these are really big issues, big problems,” Dent told ABC News’ Diane Macedo. “Boy, that’s some really powerful stuff.”

Dent added: “Given the magnitude of what they are accusing Matt Gaetz of, there could have been a recommendation for exclusion.”

“I can’t imagine that members of the Republican Party in Washington, D.C. in Congress would defend him on this issue,” he said of Gaetz’s political future. “He made his own bed, they’ll let him lie in it.”

After Gaetz resigned from office, there were calls to release the report because Gaetz was considered the country’s top law enforcement official. House Speaker Mike Johnson opposed the release, citing the longstanding practice of closing ethics investigations after a member leaves Congress.

Johnson did not respond to ABC News’ request for comment.

Republican House Ethics Committee Chairman Michael Guest of Mississippi said Monday that the “decision to release a report after (Gaetz’s) resignation is a break with the committee’s long-standing practice and a dangerous departure with potentially disastrous consequences.” consequences be.”

Guest added that he did not vote to release the report and that “the majority departed from the committee’s established standards and voted to release a report on an individual who is no longer within the committee’s jurisdiction.”

However, he said he “does not question the committee’s findings.”

California Democratic Rep. Mark DeSaulnier, one of seven members of the House Ethics Committee who voted to release the report, believes its contents “disqualify Mr. Gaetz from ever holding public office again.”

“I believe strongly in the public’s right to the results of a bipartisan, taxpayer-funded investigation and that transparency and accountability are critical to good governance and restoring trust in our institutions,” DeSaulnier said in a statement Monday statement, adding that the report “speaks.” for themselves.”

Another Democratic committee member, Rep. Glenn Ivey of Maryland, told ABC News’ Kyra Phillips, “There’s certainly a precedent for doing exactly what we did here.”

“The committee has had previous scenarios – at least four that we have identified – in which a member of Congress was investigated who had left for one reason or another… The committee nevertheless released the report to the public,” he explained . He added that this was the case with both Democratic and Republican representatives.

Ivey also said the allegations against Gaetz were “sufficiently serious,” and he agreed that his colleagues on both sides of the political spectrum reacted strongly to the allegations.

Earlier Monday, Gaetz filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia against the Ethics Commission to prevent the report from being released. Judge Amit Mehta ordered Gaetz to explain by 5 p.m. why the case should not be dismissed out of hand for lack of jurisdiction because “this case appears moot in light of the House Ethics Committee’s public disclosure of the report.”

Gaetz’s lawyers filed a brief statement Monday afternoon acknowledging that his lawsuit was “discussed” after the report’s release, which they said caused Gaetz “irreversible and irreparable harm.”

Gaetz questioned the claim that he sent money to women in exchange for sex, writing “Prostitution?!?”

He also criticized the timing of the report’s release, saying: “There’s a reason they did this to me in a report on Christmas Eve and not in a courtroom where I could present evidence and challenge witnesses.”

Gaetz had vocally defended himself over the past week, denying wrongdoing and repeatedly stressing that he was not charged in a Justice Department investigation looking into similar allegations.

“I was not accused of anything: COMPLETELY EXonerated,” he wrote on X last week.

“My 30s were a time when I worked very hard – and played hard too,” he added. “It’s embarrassing, but not criminal, that I probably partied, womanized, drank and smoked more than I should have earlier in life. I live a different life now.”

Dent countered Gaetz’s defense by saying he was a changed man.

“This whole matter is about his behavior while in office, not about things he may have done when he was younger,” he told ABC News.

Gaetz resigned his congressional seat representing Florida’s 1st District after Trump elected him AG, but later withdrew from consideration amid reports the ethics commission was preparing to release its report.

Gaetz was re-elected to his seat in the next Congress, but said he would not return after withdrawing from running for attorney general. But last week he posted that someone had suggested that he return to Congress to vote in the speaker election and “file a privileged motion to disclose any ‘me-too’ agreements (including from former members) paid for with public funds.” “

Dent said he suspects there would be “an immediate motion for his expulsion” if Gaetz joined the next Congress.

Former Rep. George Santos, R-N.Y., who was expelled from the House in 2023 after the Ethics Commission found “a complex web of unlawful activity in Rep. Santos’ campaign and personal and business finances,” jumped to Gaetz’s defense.

“The Matt Gaetz report reads like an opposition report…You want to know why? Because the “Ethics” Commission is made up of a bunch of political HACKS!” he said on Monday.

Like Santos after he left Congress, Gaetz began selling videos on Cameo — a website where users can buy personalized video messages from celebrities — after he withdrew from General Assembly consideration.

Gaetz also recently joined One America News Network, where he will host a one-hour weeknight show starting in January and will also co-host a weekly video podcast with OAN’s Dan Ball.

OAN did not immediately respond to a request for comment from ABC.