WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump’s choice for attorney general, Matt Gaetz, has launched an effort to personally secure his embattled nomination, meeting behind closed doors Wednesday with Republican senators who have heard questions about the sexual misconduct and other allegations against him.

As Gaetz and senators holed up near the Senate, the House Ethics Committee also met privately about the findings of a long-running investigation of their former colleague. The Ethics Committee did not reach an agreement over releasing the report, GOP chairman Michael Guest said after the two-hour meeting.

At least one Republican senator decried the “lynch mob” forming against Gaetz, who if confirmed would become the nation’s top law enforcement official.

“I’m not going to legitimize the process to destroy the man because people don’t like his politics,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., as he left the private senators’ meeting.

“He deserves a chance to make his argument why he should be attorney general,” Graham said. “No rubber stamp, no lynch mob.”

Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., who is supportive of Gaetz’s nomination, emerged saying, “If you have concerns, that’s fine. But don’t make up your mind yet. Let the guy testify first.”

As the senators met in the out-of-the-way Strom Thurmond Room, Hawley said Gaetz was in a “cheerful” mood. The former Florida representative met with different senators over the course of about four hours.

It’s the start of a personal push by Gaetz, who has long denied the mounting allegations against him, to shore up the Senate support needed to be confirmed as the nation’s attorney general. He brings with him wide-ranging proposals to rid the Department of Justice of those perceived by Trump to have “weaponized” their work against the president-elect, his allies and conservatives in general.

Trump himself told senators that he hoped “to get Matt across the finish line,” said Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.C.

Cramer said from his observation of Trump’s plans, “None of these people including Matt Gaetz are nominated as a diversion to the others. He wants them. He knows what he wants, he says what he wants and he’ll see it through to some conclusion.”

Gaetz is being shepherded by Vice President-elect JD Vance, an Ohio senator. His meeting with Senate allies was largely a strategy session where he emphasized the need to get a hearing where he could lay out his and Trump’s vision for the Justice Department.

It follows a meeting Gaetz had at the start of the week with the conservative House Freedom Caucus, whose members have expressed enthusiasm for his approach to wholesale changes, which have instilled a climate of anxiety and dismay at the department.

Vance reminded the GOP senators that Trump’s presidential victory had boosted their ranks to the majority. “He deserves a Cabinet that is loyal to the agenda he was elected to implement,” the outgoing Ohio senator posted on social media.

Gaetz, however, is also racing the clock against the potential release of the House Ethics Committee’s report which would air the allegations against him.

At the same time, attorneys involved in a civil case brought by a Gaetz associate were notified this week that an unauthorized person accessed a file shared between lawyers that included unredacted depositions from a woman who has said Gaetz had sex with her when she was 17, and a second woman who says she saw the encounter, according to attorney Joel Leppard.

The Senate Judiciary Committee’s Democrats sent a letter Wednesday asking FBI Director Christopher Wray to provide to the panel “the complete evidentiary file,” including the forms memorializing interviews “in the closed investigation of former Congressman Matt Gaetz’s alleged sex trafficking of minors.”

Gaetz has said the department’s investigation into sex trafficking allegations involving underage girls had ended with no federal charges against him.

“The grave public allegations against Mr. Gaetz speak directly to his fitness to serve as the chief law enforcement officer for the federal government,” wrote Judiciary Chairman Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and others on the panel.

While House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has said the committee should not release the report because Gaetz swiftly resigned his congressional seat after Trump announced the nomination, several GOP senators have indicated they want all information before having to make a decision on how they would vote.

Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, who also met with Gaetz, said of the committee’s report, “We didn’t get into a lot of detail as to what he expects to be in there, but he expressed confidence that what is before the committee are a series of false accusations.”

Trump has long had a valued ally in Gaetz, who was a star at congressional oversight hearings as he railed against what conservatives claim is bias within the Justice Department, which indicted Trump over alleged mishandling of classified documents after he left office and for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, which he lost to Democrat Joe Biden, before the Jan. 6, 2021 attack at the Capitol.

As soon as the new Congress convenes Jan. 3, 2025, when Republicans take majority control, senators are expected to begin holding hearings on Trump’s nominees, with voting possible on Inauguration Day, Jan. 20.