House Speaker Mike Johnson says he has not spoken with President-elect Donald Trump about the House Ethics Committee report on sexual misconduct allegations against Matt Gaetz, Trump’s choice for the next attorney general.
Johnson is pushing against the report’s release, after initially saying he did not have a role to play in the process, and CNN’s Jake Tapper pressed the speaker Sunday on whether that was due to pressure from Trump to squash the report.
“The president and I have literally not discussed one word about the ethics report, not once. And I’ve been with him quite a bit this week,” Johnson said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
Johnson called on the ethics panel to withhold the report shortly after returning from visiting with Trump at Mar-a-Lago on Thursday. The speaker argued against the report’s release, given that Gaetz has resigned and is no longer a sitting member of Congress.
“My understanding is that the report is not finished, it’s in a rough draft form, was not yet ready to be released, and since Matt Gaetz left the Congress, I don’t think it’s appropriate to do so,” Johnson said Sunday.
“I don’t think you want the House Ethics Committee investigating Jake Tapper or any other private citizen — you’re not a member of the institution,” the speaker added.
Some context: The Ethics Committee had been set to vote on releasing the report last week, prior to Trump’s announcement on Gaetz.
Democrats have since been pushing to make the report public, and some GOP senators have said they would like to see it before considering confirming Gaetz as attorney general.
There is some precedent for breaking from typical protocol and releasing an ethics report after a member has left Congress: The House committee did so in 1987 with a report on Rep. Bill Boner, and in 2011 the Senate committee did so with a report on Sen. John Ensign.
Watch Johnson’s interview below:
Johnson tells Tapper why House Ethics Committee report on Gaetz should not be released