House Speaker Mike Johnson strongly requests ethics panel not issue report on Matt Gaetz sex misconduct allegations

House Speaker Mike Johnson “strongly” requested Friday that a House Ethics Committee report detailing allegations of sexual misconduct and other wrongdoing against now-former Rep.Matt Gaetz not be released, two days after the far-right ex-congressman was nominated by President-elect Donald Trump to be the next attorney general.“I’m going to strongly request that the Ethics Committee not issue the report, because that is not the way we do things in the House,” Johnson (R-La.) told Politico.

“I think that would be a terrible precedent to set.”Senate Democrats and Republicans alike have expressed interest in vetting Gaetz (R-Fla.) to be the nation’s top law enforcement officer by reviewing evidence gathered during the Ethics Committee probe, which has proceeded off and on for more than three years..Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin on Thursday asked the Ethics Committee to “preserve and share their report.“Durbin (D-Ill.) said the “sequence and timing of Mr.Gaetz’s resignation from the House raises serious questions” about what was in the report — and House Republicans “cannot allow this valuable information from a bipartisan investigation to be hidden from the American people.”“Make no mistake: this information could be relevant to the question of Mr.

Gaetz’s confirmation as the next Attorney General of the United States and our constitutional responsibility of advice and consent,” the 79-year-old posted on X.“I think that there should not be any limitations on the Senate Judiciary Committee’s investigation, including whatever the House Ethics Committee has generated,” agreed Sen.John Cornyn (R-Texas), a high-ranking member of the Judiciary panel.The 10-member House ethics panel had been scheduled to meet Friday for a vote on whether to release the full report — but that session was postponed.“What happens in Ethics is confidential,” Chairman Michael Guest (R-Miss.) had told reporters on Thursday, seem...