“I don’t want there to be any limitation at all on what the Senate could consider,” he told reporters.
When asked if that means he wants to see the ethics report, he replied: “Absolutely.”
The lawyer for the alleged victim, John Clune, said: “Mr Gaetz’s likely nomination as attorney general is a perverse development in a truly dark series of events.
“We would support the House Ethics Committee immediately releasing their report. The 17-year-old was a high school student and there were witnesses.”
The Washington Post reported that the House committee may release the report into Mr Gaetz as early as Friday.
The alleged encounter
According to testimony as given to the ethics committee from Mr Greenberg’s ex-wife, Mr Gaetz is said to have attended a drugs-fuelled party hosted by Chris Dorworth, a former Republican member of Florida’s House of Representatives in summer 2017.
Mr Dorworth has denied that he attended the party at his home, claiming he was instead celebrating a friend’s birthday part “on a lake far away,” according to The Orlando Sentinel.
Sex workers were said to have roamed the Heathrow, Florida, home with “access to the bedrooms in the Dorworth residence to engage in sexual activities, as well as alcohol, cocaine, ecstasy, also known as molly and marijuana”, according to court documents.
Among the guests at the party was the 17-year-old girl, known only by AB in court filings.
Having just finished her junior year at a local high school, AB claimed that she drove her mother’s car through the gated community’s security gates at 6.15 pm on July 15, 2017.
Upon arrival, guests were allegedly ordered to place their cellphones in a large bowl, in order to prevent evidence of the party from spreading.
The court documents said AB was naked among the adult guests.
The documents made no allegations and did not provide any evidence that Mr Gaetz had used illegal drugs or had sex with the underage girl.
Witnesses do, however, place him in attendance at the party.
The House Committee’s investigation is reported to contain a statement from an ex-girlfriend of Mr Gaetz who said he was in attendance at a party where drugs were present and it was also attended by the female with whom he is alleged to have had sex when she was a child, according to ABC News.
Jacob Bliss, a spokesman for Gaetz office, told the Orlando Sentinel on Friday that Mr Gaetz “has never participated” in the alleged events.
“If people said otherwise, they are either confused or lying,” Mr Bliss said.
Evidence, including an interview with AB, remains sealed inside unreleased court documents.
Why does Donald Trump like Matt Gaetz?
As a five-term representative for the Florida Panhandle, Mr Gaetz has been a loyal defender of Mr Trump.
He travelled to New York earlier this year when the president-elect was facing his own hush money trial.
In June when Mr Trump was facing off against Joe Biden in a presidential debate, Mr Gaetz made sure he was a strong presence in the spin room, talking up the now-president-elect’s successes.
He went on to help Mr Trump prepare for a debate against Kamala Harris, in which the Republican made the untrue claim that Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, were eating cats and dogs.
Both men share a claim that the justice system, including the Department of Justice, has unfairly gone after them.
Mr Gaetz, over the years has also positioned himself as a man willing to take on the FBI, an agency that Mr Trump has complaints over because of its probe into his campaign’s connection to Russia in 2016 and a raid over classified documents at Mar-a-Lago.