Johnson says he's going to request Ethics Committee not release Gaetz report

Johnson called on the ethics panel to withhold the report shortly after returning from visiting with President-elect Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago on Thursday, and said he plans to speak with the panel’s chairman, GOP Rep. Michael Guest. Gaetz, who resigned from Congress this week after Trump announced his intent to nominate him to serve as attorney general, has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.

“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, and I think that would be a terrible precedent to set,” Johnson told reporters on Friday. The comments are a significant move by the House GOP leader to push to block the release of a report from a probe that is supposed to be separate from the speaker’s office.

Johnson’s comments also mark a reversal after he said on Thursday, “the speaker is not involved with what happens in ethics. Lots of important reasons for that.”

Since Gaetz has resigned, the probe has ended as the panel only has jurisdiction over a member when they are serving in Congress. Lawmakers have been deliberating whether the panel still has the power to release the report, even if Gaetz is no longer a member of Congress.

Speaking again to reporters again on Friday after saying he would ask the Ethics Committee not to release the report, Johnson refused to say if he had spoken to Trump about the issue and sought to clarify his position on the committee not issuing the report.

“I’m not talking to anybody about what I’ve said to Trump,” Johnson said, emphasizing that the speaker’s office has “no involvement or understanding” of the ethics committee’s inner workings.

“Let me say this. I believe it is very important to maintain the House’s traditions of not issuing ethics reports on people who are no longer (a) member of Congress,” Johnson said. “I think it would open a Pandora’s box. It’s a very important rule that should be maintained. It has been broken once or twice, it should not have been.”

Johnson continued, “What I’m saying is, if someone is no longer a member of Congress, we are not in the business of investigating and publishing reports about people who are not part of this institutions. The House Ethics Committee’s jurisdiction is over sitting members of Congress. I think if you think about it, this will make sense to everybody.”

A spokesman for the Senate Judiciary Committee pushed back on Johnson’s comments in a statement to CNN.

“There is longstanding precedent for releasing ethics investigation materials after a Member resigns, whether in the House or Senate. The now former Congressman 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,” said Josh Sorbe, spokesperson for Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, a Democrat who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee.

“There is bipartisan support for the Senate Judiciary Committee having access to this information. 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 ethics panel had been due to meet this week to vote on releasing a report addressing numerous allegations about Gaetz, according to multiple sources familiar with the discussions. But committee Republicans canceled a scheduled meeting on Friday with Democrats after meeting privately Thursday night.

The Senate Judiciary Committee requested on Thursday that the House Ethics Committee immediately preserve and “transmit all relevant documentation on Mr. Gaetz, including the report” as the Senate gears up to vet the nomination during what is expected to be a contentious confirmation process.

“The Senate certainly had a right to request (the Gaetz report). I can’t talk about our internal deliberations, but the information that they’ve requested, I think it’s totally reasonable for them to have, and in fact, I think it’s essential for them to get that kind of information before they make a decision of this magnitude,” said Democratic Rep. Glenn Ivey, who serves on the Ethics Committee.

The Ethics Committee said in June that it had been probing allegations that Gaetz may have “engaged in sexual misconduct and illicit drug use, accepted improper gifts, dispensed special privileges and favors to individuals with whom he had a personal relationship, and sought to obstruct government investigations of his conduct.”

At that time, the panel said that Gaetz “has categorically denied all of the allegations before the Committee.”

Democrats are beginning to openly question the timing of Gaetz’s resignation, and if it was tied to the impending report release.

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who served on the ethics panel for seven years, told reporters, “One would suspect the timing is suspicious because it was a matter of hours before the committee was going to release their report. And I don’t know what the tradition is of the committee to say we can’t let somebody exploit the timing of the report because there is a lot of work that goes into it.”

“It defies belief that anyone could become the chief law enforcement officer of the United States of America with an outstanding House Ethics Committee investigative report that doesn’t get released relating to potential misconduct,” Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin told CNN.

Pressed about whether the public had the right to more information about the allegations now that Trump has picked Gaetz to serve as his attorney general, Johnson responded, “The rules of the House have always been that a former member is beyond the jurisdiction of the ethics committee, and so I don’t think that’s relevant.”

CNN’s Lauren Fox contributed to this report.