Fox News Host Confronts Mike Johnson With GOP Demand for Matt Gaetz Report

Following former Representative Matt Gaetz’s resignation from Congress, Fox News host Shannon Bream confronted House Speaker Mike Johnson on Sunday over the GOP demand for Gaetz’s ethics report to be released.
Gaetz resigned from Congress on Wednesday, shortly after President-elect Donald Trump announced that he had been chosen as his attorney general. Trump’s nomination immediately brought a backlash, with some legal experts and lawmakers arguing that Gaetz was “unqualified” and could face an uphill battle getting the U.S. Senate to confirm him. The pick was also controversial because Gaetz is the subject of a bipartisan investigation by the House Ethics Committee over alleged sexual misconduct and illegal drug use, which he has denied.
His resignation has since scuttled plans for the release of a report revealing the results of the investigation, which was expected to be made public as soon as Friday.
However, pressure has since been mounting on the committee to release the report regardless of Gaetz’s resignation, with proponents arguing that it could contain information vital in determining whether he should be confirmed as attorney general. Johnson, a Louisiana Republican and Trump ally, previously said that “the speaker is not involved with what happens in ethics” when asked Thursday about the potential release of the report.
By Friday, Johnson had changed his position and indicated that he was intervening in an attempt to block the potential release of the report, arguing that releasing the document “would open a Pandora’s box.”
“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 said on Friday, according to CNN. “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 institution. The House Ethics Committee’s jurisdiction is over sitting members of Congress.”
However, a push for the release of the report has continued, with some Republican senators calling for the release of the report regardless of Johnson’s remarks.
In a Fox News Sunday interview, Bream asked Johnson about Gaetz’s ethics report and why he is “against the transparency.”
The House speaker responded: “With regard to the report there’s a very important reason for the tradition and the rule that we have almost always followed and that is we don’t issue investigations and ethics reports on people who are not members of Congress. I’m afraid that would open a Pandora’s box because the jurisdiction of the ethics committee is limited to those serving in the institution.”
Bream then pressed Johnson on how he sees the GOP demand for the report playing out, citing GOP Senator John Cornyn of Texas, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, who told reporters on Thursday that he “absolutely” wants to see the report before considering whether to confirm Gaetz. He said there should “not be any limitation” on information concerning the former congressman.
Johnson said he hopes the House Ethics Committee sticks by “our tradition and protocol.”
“I think this would take us down a path that I don’t know how we would return if the House Ethics Committee and its resources could be used to investigate people who are not in the house then where would that end,” he added.
However, Bream interjected, “To be fair, he was a member when the investigation was underway.”
Newsweek has reached out to Johnson’s office and Gaetz via email for comment.
Johnson’s remarks come as several Senate Republicans have expressed skepticism over Gaetz’s selection for attorney general as the Associated Press reported on Wednesday that most Republicans avoided directly answering whether they supported the president-elect’s pick.
Senator Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican, told the AP that Gaetz will have “his work cut out for him” to win enough votes for confirmation.
Richard Painter, a White House ethics lawyer during the George W. Bush administration and professor at the University of Minnesota Law School, previously told Newsweek that he agrees that Gaetz could face difficulty winning Senate confirmation.
He said the Senate Judiciary Committee could refuse to hold a hearing or delay a vote on the nomination if “all the relevant information” about the nominee is not handed over, including the House Ethics Committee’s report.
“Republicans in the Senate are not going to want to be associated with approving an attorney general without a thorough background check. I just don’t think they’re going to want to do that,” he said. “There are plenty of very, very conservative Republicans who could become Attorney General. Mr. Gaetz is the President-elect’s choice, but all the information needs to be provided the Senate, and I just don’t think Republican senators are going to vote yes blindly without all that information.”
Gaetz will need to be confirmed by a simple majority in the Senate, which will comprise 52 Republican senators to 47 aligned with the Democrats following this year’s election.