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A “terrible breach of protocol” would occur, according to Johnson, if the committee made the report on Gaetz—who resigned from the House this week—public.
Washington — House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican from Louisiana, stated on Friday that he would “strongly request” that the House Ethics Committee refrain from publishing a report outlining the findings of its probe of former Representative Matt Gaetz, a Republican from Florida.
Since 2021, the Ethics panel had been looking into Gaetz, who resigned this week after being selected as attorney general by President-elect Donald Trump. Any wrongdoing has been disputed by him.
Johnson stated that he intends to inform the panel’s chairman, Rep. Michael Guest, R-Miss, that the report’s release would be a “horrible breach of protocol, tradition, and the spirit of the rule” now that Gaetz is no longer a sitting congressman.
When asked if the public should read the report, Johnson responded, “The House has always been that a former member is beyond the jurisdiction of the ethics committee.” “I humbly ask that the Ethics Committee refrain from publishing the report.”
Ethics reports have previously been made public following or on the same day as a member of Congress resigns. The committee sent their reports to the lawmakers two months after former Representative Bill Boner, D-Tenn., resigned in 1987, and on the day that former Representative Buz Lukens, R-Ohio, resigned from the House in 1990.
Later on Friday, Johnson stated that releasing the findings to the public “would open Pandora’s box.” He continued, “If it’s been broken once or twice, it should not have been.”
Following his Thursday meeting with Trump at Mar-a-Lago, Johnson arrived back in Washington, D.C., early on Friday morning. Johnson will not say if he discussed the Ethics report with Trump.
The 10-member, nonpartisan Ethics panel was supposed to meet Friday to examine the Gaetz report and whether it should be made public. However, a source with direct information said on Thursday that the meeting had been canceled.
The Ethics Committee’s spokesperson, Tom Rust, chose not to respond to Johnson’s comments.
Republicans, who will be in charge of the Judiciary Committee next year and will be in charge of the confirmation process for Gaetz, told NBC News Thursday that they would like to see the specifics of the Ethics report. However, several noted that if the report is not made public, they would probably learn about it via an FBI background.
On Friday, Democrats on the Judiciary Committee, led by Chairman Dick Durbin, D-Ill., asked the Ethics Committee to preserve its report and promptly turn over any pertinent documents from its Gaetz probe.
Democratic Judiciary Committee spokesperson Josh Sorbe stated that Gaetz “shouldn’t be able to resign away an ethics investigation involving allegations of grave misconduct, especially when he will be nominated to be our country’s top law enforcement officer.”
“There is bipartisan support for the Senate Judiciary Committee having access to this information,” Sorbe stated. “Chair Durbin will continue pursuing it so members of the Committee can fulfill their constitutional obligation of advice and consent on this deeply problematic nominee.”
The most current inquiry of Gaetz by the Ethics Committee focused on charges of sexual misconduct, drug usage, improper gift-accepting, obstruction, and other offenses. Although he was eventually not charged, Gaetz had also been the subject of a federal investigation for sex trafficking.
