McCarthy claims Gaetz ousted him as speaker when he refused to ‘do something illegal’ to stop ethics probe

Kevin McCarthy has claimed that Florida Republican Representative Matt Gaetz ousted him as speaker because he refused to “do something illegal” to stop an ethics probe into the congressman.

The former California Republican congressman and House speaker appeared on CBS’s Face the Nation on Sunday, pointing to the motion to vacate filed against his successor, Speaker Mike Johnson, by Georgia Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene after Mr Johnson made a deal with Democrats to fund the government for the rest of the fiscal year until 30 September.

Mr McCarthy was ousted after just nine months as speaker in October after Mr Gatez filed a motion to vacate after Mr McCarthy also compromised with Democrats on government funding.

“The one advice I would give to the conference and to the speaker is do not be fearful of a motion to vacate,” he said on CBS. “I do not think they could do it again. That was surely based on Matt Gaetz trying to stop an ethics complaint.

“It was purely Matt coming to me trying… [to get] me to do something illegal to stop the Ethics Committee from moving forward in an investigation that was started long before I became speaker,” Mr McCarthy said.

Speaking to NBC News, South Carolina Republican Representative Ralph Norman said he saw but didn’t hear a conversation between Mr Gaetz and Mr McCarthy on the floor of the House which he noted was out of the ordinary as “they weren’t friendly”.

Mr Norman said he later asked Mr Gaetz about the conversation and that the Floridian had said that Mr McCarthy had asked him “‘Do you want this to go away?’ or something like that”.

He added that Mr Gaetz didn’t consider any alleged offer in the interaction and that Mr McCarthy didn’t get the opportunity