Speaker Mike Johnson says he will 'strongly request' that Ethics Committee withhold its Matt Gaetz report
WASHINGTON — House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said Friday that he would "strongly request" that the House Ethics Committee not release a report detailing its investigation into former Rep.
WASHINGTON — House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said Friday that he would "strongly request" that the House Ethics Committee not release a report detailing its investigation into former Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla.
The Ethics panel had been investigating Gaetz — who resigned this week after President-elect Donald Trump chose him to serve as attorney general — off and on since 2021. He has denied any wrongdoing.
Johnson said that the release of the report, now that Gaetz is no longer a sitting congressman, would be a “terrible breach of protocol, tradition and the spirit of the rule,” and said he plans to communicate that to the panel’s chairman, Rep. Michael Guest, R-Miss.
“The rules of the House has always been that a former member is beyond the jurisdiction of the ethics committee,” Johnson said when asked if the public deserves to see the report. “I’m going to request, strongly request, that the Ethics Committee not issue the report.”
There is precedent for releasing ethics reports after or on the same day that a lawmaker resigns from Congress. Two months after former Rep. Bill Boner, D-Tenn., resigned in 1987, and on the day former Rep. Buz Lukens, R-Ohio, resigned from the House in 1990, the committee released its reports into the lawmakers.
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