House Speaker Mike Johnson ‘strongly’ urges ethics panel not to release report on Matt Gaetz sexual misconduct allegations

House Speaker Mike Johnson on Friday “strongly” urged that the House Ethics Committee report detailing allegations of sexual misconduct and other wrongdoing against former Rep. Matt Gaetz be released before the far-right former congressman is released. Will not be released after two days. Nominated as the next Attorney General by President-elect Donald Trump,

“I’m going to strongly request that the Ethics Committee not release the report, because that’s not how we work in the House,” Johnson (R-La.) told Politico“I think that would be a terrible precedent to set.”

Senate Democrats and Republicans have equally expressed interest in investigating Gaetz (R-Fla.) to become the nation’s top law enforcement official by reviewing evidence collected during The Ethics Committee investigation, which has been ongoing for more than three years.,

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin told the Ethics Committee on Thursday “Save and share their reports.,

Durbin (D-Ill.) said that “the sequence and timing of Mr. Gaetz’s resignation from the House raises serious questions about what was in the report” — and that House Republicans “cannot allow this valuable information to be hidden from a bipartisan investigation.” Can” American people.”

“Make no mistake: This information may be relevant to the question of Mr. Gaetz’s confirmation as the next Attorney General of the United States and our constitutional responsibility to advise and consent,” the 79-year-old posted on Twitter.

“I think there should be no limits on the Senate Judiciary Committee’s investigation, including what the House Ethics Committee has generated.” Agreed Senator John Cornyn (R-Texas), a high-ranking member of the Judiciary panel.

The 10-member House ethics panel was scheduled to meet Friday to vote on whether to release the full report — but that session was postponed.

“What happens in ethics is confidential,” Chairman Michael Guest (R-Miss.) told reporters Thursday. “We will maintain that confidentiality.”

Gaetz, 42, resigned on Wednesday hours after President-elect Donald Trump announced his nomination, effectively ending the House-led investigation.

Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) has repeatedly claimed that Gaetz called on seven other Republicans to oust him from office last year because he did not close the ethics investigation.

“The person who raised this issue has received an ethics complaint about paying, sleeping with a 17-year-old girl,” McCarthy told CNN during the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.

The Justice Department investigated sex trafficking allegations against the lawmaker three years ago, but closed the investigation without filing charges.

However, at least one witness in that investigation was subpoenaed and testified before the House Ethics Committee last summer. ABC News The report Thursday alleged Gaetz had sexual relations with her when she was a 17-year-old high school student.

Gaetz responded in a statement to The Post, saying, “These allegations are fabricated and will constitute perjury to Congress.” “This false smear after a three-year criminal investigation should be viewed with great skepticism.”

Other witnesses who previously testified before their ethics panel paid to attend parties — with Gaetz and his friend, ex-Seminole County Tax Commissioner Joel Greenberg — where sex and drug use took place, sources told ABC News.

Greenberg convicted of federal chargesWhich also includes sex trafficking of a minor in May 2021.

He confessed to recruiting women for commercial sex acts and paying them more than $70,000 from 2016 to 2018.

One of those women was the same one who claimed before the House Ethics Committee that Gaetz was involved with her underage.

“Lies were weaponized to try to destroy me. These lies resulted in prosecution, conviction, and prison,” Gaetz posted early Friday morning. “For liars, not for me. I focused on the truth and doing my job.

The top lawyer for the House Ethics Committee did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

There is precedent for issuing an ethics report after a member leaves Congress. In December 1987, the panel proposed a Incomplete details of Representative Bill Bonner’s investigation (D-Tenn.), who resigned two months ago to run for Nashville mayor over his relationship with a government contractor.