House speaker moves to block Senate Judiciary Committee from seeing Gaetz ethics report
"I think that would be a terrible precedent," House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters. (Photo by Tom Brenner for The Washington Post)
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) said Friday that he will urge the House Ethics Committee to suppress its report into former congressman Matt Gaetz (R-Florida) and block the Senate Judiciary Committee from viewing the investigation, an unusual intervention that could shape a divisive nomination fight.
“I’m going to strongly request 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,” Johnson told reporters midday Friday.
Pressed again on whether he would stop it from coming out publicly or from going to the Judiciary Committee for consideration of Gaetz’s nomination, Johnson said, “I’m going to request that it not be.”
The committee was looking into allegations that Gaetz, now President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to run the Justice Department, engaged in sexual misconduct and illegal drug use and accepted improper gifts, while a member of Congress.
The comments marked a stunning reversal for Johnson, who just Thursday told Fox News that the speaker’s role is not to get “involved in what happens in Ethics. Lots of important reasons for that.”
Johnson told reporters Friday that he had not yet reached the Ethics chair, Rep. Michael Guest (R-Mississippi), in part because the speaker spent Thursday night in Palm Beach with Trump, who is already testing Republicans’ loyalty with controversial nominees such as Gaetz.
Gaetz resigned Wednesday, just after Trump tapped him for attorney general. Once lawmakers leave Congress, the Ethics committees no longer have jurisdiction or the ability to administer punishment to them.
But both the House and Senate Ethics committees have in the past released investigative reports or summaries, or shared their materials with other investigative bodies such as the Justice Department or congressional committees.
“That’s the precedent. That’s the history, as I understand it. So, I think that’s a larger discussion,” Rep. Mark DeSaulnier (D-California), a member of the Ethics panel, said early Friday before Johnson’s comments.
Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-California), who served seven years on the Ethics Committee before she joined party leadership, concurred that the committee can do what it wants with the findings.
“The investigation would stop. Whether the report would stop is another thing. That’s up to the committee. I think they should release it,” the former speaker told reporters Friday.
Johnson’s about-face is significant because several Senate Judiciary Committee Republicans have publicly asked for the House Ethics panel to release its report - or at least transmit it privately to the committee - so they can adequately prepare to question Gaetz in a confirmation hearing once he is formally nominated to serve as attorney general next year.
Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), who has served decades on the Judiciary Committee, told reporters Thursday that he would “absolutely” like to have access to the report’s findings.
“I don’t see any relevant information should be withheld,” Cornyn said. “We also have the resources of the FBI to do a background investigation as well. So one way or the other, as you know around here, facts ultimately come out.”
House speakers, as well as other lawmakers, have in the past suggested the Ethics Committee begin investigations into potentially unethical members, but intervening at the conclusion of an investigation - into someone seeking to be the nation’s chief law enforcement officer - has no modern precedent.
It’s unclear if the Senate Judiciary Committee would be able to access the report if the House refuses to make it available. But at least one senator said on Friday he still expected to obtain it. “We should be able to get a hold of it, and we should be able to have access to it one way or another,” Sen. Mike Rounds (R-South Dakota) said on CNN after Johnson’s comments.
Johnson declared to reporters that sometime Friday he would be likely to call Guest - or “anybody else” who will listen - a departure from norms.
About 90 minutes after his first remarks, Johnson tried to claim that nothing had changed. “I’m not involved with the investigation; nothing has changed. I’m not involved in the Ethics investigation,” he said.
Johnson said that he was “merely commenting” on media reports and that he wanted to uphold tradition.
Asked again whether senators should review the Gaetz material, Johnson demurred.
“My belief is that the Ethics Committee should not release a report on someone who is not a current member of the House. Period, end of sentence,” he said.
Back in 2006, despite the immediate resignation of a Florida congressman caught up in a scandal, the House Ethics Committee went ahead with an investigation into the ex-lawmaker’s relationship with House pages and released a detailed report two months later.
In 2011, after a Republican from Nevada resigned rather than sit for an interview, the Senate Ethics Committee voted unanimously to release its 75-page report and forwarded its materials to the Justice Department asking for a criminal investigation.
The Ethics Committee prides itself in operating quietly and independently given its investigative nature, though it has not been safe from the waves of polarization that have impacted the House in recent years - and the Gaetz episode is its most recent test.
The committee, which is composed of five Republicans and five Democrats, had been planning on meeting Friday to vote on whether to release the report on Gaetz this week, but it abruptly canceled the meeting Thursday evening. It is unclear whether it has been rescheduled, or if members would even discuss releasing the report.
“That’s to be determined. There’s a mystery within the mystery,” DeSaulnier said.
