Axios: “House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) reaffirmed his view that the possibly damaging House Ethics Committee report on former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) should remain sealed.
Why it matters: Gaetz, President-elect Trump‘s controversial pick for attorney general, resigned from the House Wednesday — making him a “private citizen,” Johnson argued. But senators tasked with confirming the president-elect’s pick have made bipartisan calls to see the report.
- Axios reported Friday that Johnson said he’d ask the committee not to release their findings, saying it would set a “terrible precedent.”
- But Johnson told CNN’s Jake Tapper Sunday that the House speaker “is not involved in ethics committee work … because the speaker can’t put a thumb on the scale or have anything to do with that.”
Driving the news: Johnson, appearing on CNN’s “State of the Union,” reiterated that releasing the report would be “a Pandora’s Box,” arguing there is a “very important protocol and tradition” that the committee’s jurisdiction does not extend to “non-members.”
But he added, “the speaker does not have the authority to stop the release of a report by the ethics committee.”
But Tapper noted the House Ethics Committee has released reports on lawmakers after their resignation in the past, pointing to former reps. William Boner (D-Tenn.) and Donald Lukens (R-Ohio).
Johnson acknowledged there were “exceptions to the rule” but added, “I wasn’t the speaker at that time — I’m the speaker now.””