Mike Johnson busted by former GOP official for lying about Gaetz report

House Speaker Mike Johnson's protestations that it would be unprecedented to release what is expected to be a damning House Ethics Committee report on now ex-Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) was demolished on MSNBC on Saturday morning.

During a panel discussion on "The Weekend" the Louisiana Republican's dismay that the report may be made public before Donald Trump's attorney general candidate faces a Senate confirmation hearing led him to state, “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.”

Former Republican National Committee chair Michael Steele, from his perch as co-host on "The Weekend," wasn't having it on Saturday morning.

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"Do you think we will see this report?" co-host Symone Sanders Townsend asked guest ex-Rep. Joe Walsh (R-IL) before adding, "I know the Senate has asked for it but it would be unprecedented to release a report about a member who is no longer a member."

"Actually, it's not," Steele interrupted.

"Really?" she asked.

"Actually, it would not," he repeated, "because the House has done this before on a number of occasions in the past where reports have been released, when the member has subsequently left the House."

"And the fact that the speaker would stand there and say just a few days before, there is reporting in the Washington Post, the New York Times reporting on this very point. So the fact that you would sit here and say, 'Oh, well, I just can't, that is the precedent, that is the history,' no, that is not the precedent."

"And I think it is important for people to understand that we're getting into a rope a dope, you are getting a lot of crazy noise that is misdirecting the fact that Ethics Committee as you know has the power to release it if they so decide. Period," he added.

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