By FARNOUSH AMIRI

WASHINGTON (AP) – House Speaker Mike Johnson said Friday that he would “strongly urge” the House Ethics Committee not to release the results of his investigation ex-rep. Matt Gaetzrebuffing senators seeking access now that Gaetz is president-elect Donald Trump his nominee for attorney general.

Johnson’s intervention is highly unusual because the ethics panel has traditionally operated independently. His move seems certain to add to the growth furore on Capitol Hill in connection with the nomination of Gaetz to become the nation’s top law enforcement officer.

“I’m going to strongly urge the Ethics Committee not to issue the report, because that’s not how we do things in the House,” Johnson told reporters at the US Capitol. “And I think that would be a terrible precedent to set.”

Ethics reports have previously been published following a member’s resignation, although this is extremely rare.

Johnson’s comments were a reversal from Wednesday, when he suggested a hands-off approach to the Gaetz report. “The Speaker of the House is not involved in this and cannot be involved in this,” he previously said of the Ethics Committee.

The bipartisan Ethics Commission is under enormous pressure as it weighs what to do about its years-long investigation into sexual misconduct and other allegations against Gaetz, who resigned from Congress on Wednesday after Trump announced him as his nominee in the position of general prosecutor.

It is standard practice for the Ethics Committee to end investigations when members of Congress leave on the grounds that they lack the authority to continue. But the circumstances with Gaetz are not standard given his potential role in Trump’s Cabinet. Senators say the committee’s material needs to see the light of day so it can fully vet his nomination.

“The sequence and timing of Mr. Gaetz’s resignation from the House raises serious questions about the content of the House Ethics Committee report,” the senator said. Dick DurbinD-Ill., chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Thursday. “We cannot allow this valuable information from a bipartisan investigation to be withheld from the American people.”

Gaetz has vehemently denied any wrongdoing and said last year that the Justice Department’s separate investigation into him into sex-trafficking allegations involving underage girls ended without federal charges.

“The rules of the House have always been that a former member is beyond the jurisdiction of the ethics committee,” Johnson added. “And so I don’t think it’s relevant.”

But Republican and Democratic senators alike on the Judiciary Committee that will consider Gaetz’s attorney general nomination have demanded that the report be made available to them.

“I think it will be material in the proceedings,” the senator said. Thomas Tillisa Republican from North Carolina.

Sen. John Cornyna Texas Republican, said: “I believe there should be no limitation on the investigation of the Senate Judiciary Committee, including anything that the House Ethics Committee has generated.”

However, the chairman of the ethics committee, Rep. Michael Guest, R-Miss., said he did not know if the committee would be able to provide the report to the Senate: “That is something that staff is looking at and trying to provide some guidance for members.”

When asked if he would at least discuss the report with upper house members, Guest said “that’s a decision the committee as a whole will make at some point.”

Trump’s attorney general is expected to oversee sweeping changes to the Justice Department, which has been the target of Trump’s ire. over two criminal cases brought his accusation of conspiring to subvert the 2020 election and hoarding of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate. Trump, who has declared himself the victim of politically motivated prosecutions, made the promise repeatedly during the campaign to carry out the punishment against his political enemies if he were to return to the White House.