Former Speaker Kevin McCarthy says he was ousted from his role due to his actions surrounding an ethics repot on Matt Gaetz, and now that same report has caused turmoil within the Republican party once again, according to a report.
Gaetz was at the forefront of the battle to boot McCarthy from the speaker role, but he says his reasoning had nothing to do with the ethics report involving allegations of Gaetz’s drug abuse and sex with an underage girl.
That drama appeared to have died down, but Trump’s decision to nominate Gaetz for Attorney General has resurfaced the fighting.
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Annie Karni, who covers Congress for the New York Times, wrote on Sunday that Speaker Mike Johnson’s decision to interfere with the ethics commission’s decision to release the report was “a full-circle moment” for the GOP.
“Now Mr. McCarthy is long gone, Mr. Gaetz is the president-elect’s choice to run the Justice Department, and Mr. Johnson is doing what Mr. McCarthy never would — intervening to try to make sure the damaging material on Mr. Gaetz never sees the light of day,” Karni wrote. “It is a fitting coda to two years of tumult in the Republican-led House, disorder that was exacerbated by bad blood among individual members.”
The weekend report continues:
“The chaos has been driven by big-picture political dynamics: a polarized Congress where compromise is a lost art, a G.O.P. split between center-leaning conservatives and the hard right, and a too-small majority that gave outsize power to rebels like Mr. Gaetz.”
Karni goes on to say that the “public drama was also fueled at least in part by more personal and petty feuds, chief among them the one between Mr. Gaetz and Mr. McCarthy over the ethics inquiry.”
“Their epic rivalry became emblematic of the party’s deeper problems. Personal vendettas and shifting alliances became as important to its players as any ideology or policy win. Over the past two years in Congress, governing often took a back seat to intraparty feuding,” the report states. “Mr. McCarthy has long claimed that Mr. Gaetz tried to block his ascension to the speakership, and then patiently plotted his downfall because of his refusal to quash the investigation.”
Read the report here.