House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) on Sunday announced the House Ethics Committee's report on President-elect Trump and Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), who resigned shortly after Trump was named president-elect. He said he did not discuss the release of the film. The job of the Attorney General.
In an interview on CNN's “State of the Union,” anchor Jake Tapper pressed Johnson about the timing of his remarks about the ethics report, and Johnson told reporters last Wednesday that as chairman, “I can't get involved. ”, he pointed out. But on Friday, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the report should not be made public.
“Between those two comments, you did speak to President-elect Trump,” Tapper noted. “Did he encourage you to change your stance and block the release of the House Ethics Committee report?”
“No, he didn't,” Johnson said in an interview. “The president and I have literally never discussed a single word about the ethics report, and we have never discussed it. This week between Washington and Mar-a-Lago, and last night at Madison Square Garden. We spent quite a lot of time together.”
Johnson defended his various statements on the issue as “totally consistent” and reiterated his position that the Ethics Committee does not have the authority to investigate Gaetz because he is no longer a member of Congress. Ta.
“But what I will tell you about this is that what I have said is completely consistent. The Speaker of the House is not involved in the work of the Ethics Committee. There can be no such thing. And they shouldn't, because the chair can't be involved in the ethics committee's activities, “put his thumb on the scale or have nothing to do with it,'' Johnson said. “So I have no idea what this report is going to be. Jake, I didn't know until mid-week when it came out in the press.”
“What I said about the report is that the report should not be made public. Why? Because Matt Gaetz resigned from Congress. He is no longer a member. There is a very important protocol, tradition, and rule that the House Ethics Committee's jurisdiction does not extend to non-members of Congress.
“I think it's a Pandora's box. I don't think they want the House Ethics Committee to use all of its vast resources and authority to go after civilians, but that's where Matt Gaetz is right now. I think that's a very important guardrail for this organization because he's not a member of Congress anymore, and that's what I was talking about in those sound bites.”
When Mr. Tapper countered by asking whether the American people had a right to see the report, he said that the report was paid for by people's tax dollars, and Mr. Johnson disputed that the report had already been completed. chanted.
“My understanding is that the report is not yet finished. It was in rough draft form and not yet ready for release, but now that Matt Gaetz has left Congress, it seems appropriate to release it. I don’t think so.”
“I wasn't the speaker then. Now I'm the speaker,” Johnson said, noting that there are only a few exceptions when reports about former members are released.
“The Chair does not have the power to stop the Ethics Committee from publishing its report, but I am simply stating what I think is the obvious point: we do not want to go down that path,” he said. Ta. .
Johnson saw Trump. Gaetz attended a gala at Mar-a-Lago on Thursday night. But he declined to say whether he had discussed his position on the report's release with Trump.
“I haven't told anyone about what I said to Trump,” Johnson said.
