The speaker took the stand as political pressure mounted on ethics committee chairman Michael Guest, R-Miss., to release the contents of the panel’s years-long probe of Gaetz, first opened in 2021 to look into the sexual misconduct and other serious allegations against the firebrand right-wing Florida Republican.

Senators from both parties this week expressed unhappiness with Trump’s pick, promised to closely examine the allegations against Gaetz during a possible confirmation hearing and urged the ethics committee to preserve and turn over any records related to the probe.

Gaetz abruptly resigned from the House on Wednesday following his nomination to be the nation’s top lawyer, and that move was cited by Johnson as reason for his opposition to releasing the investigation materials.

“The rules of the House have always been that a former member is beyond the jurisdiction of the Ethics Committee. And so I don’t think that’s relevant,” he said, adding, “I think it’s a terrible breach of protocol and tradition.”

The Ethics Committee had been scheduled to meet Friday, but Guest told Politico the meeting had been postponed, although not entirely canceled.

Gaetz’s sudden resignation raised suspicions it was strategically timed to prevent the ethics panel from releasing the contents of its report.

“The sequence and timing of Mr. Gaetz’s resignation from the House raises serious questions about the contents of the House Ethics Committee report and findings,” Democratic members of the Senate Judiciary Committee wrote in a letter sent Thursday to Guest and Rep. Susan Wild of Pennsylvania, the ranking Democrat on the committee.

“We cannot allow this critical information from a bipartisan investigation into longstanding public allegations to be hidden from the American people, given that it is directly relevant to the question of whether Mr. Gaetz is qualified and fit to be the next Attorney General of the United States,” they wrote.

The Senate Democrats requested that the panel’s leaders “immediately provide to the Senate Judiciary Committee your Committee’s report and all documentation related to your investigation into Mr. Gaetz’s alleged misconduct.”

A friend of Gaetz’s, Joel Greenberg, has admitted to having sex with an underage girl and has alleged Gaetz paid him for access to the victim. A criminal investigation of the lawmaker was closed in 2022 with prosecutors recommending that charges not be brought against him due to Greenberg’s and the victim’s lack of credibility as potential witnesses, according to multiple reports.

Gaetz has vehemently denied any wrongdoing.

John Clune, an attorney representing the underage victim, called Trump’s nomination of Gaetz as attorney general “a perverse development in a truly dark series of events,” adding, “We would support the House Ethics Committee immediately releasing their report. She was a high school student and there were witnesses.”