Report finds Boris Johnson deliberately misled Parliament over ‘partygate’ during COVID lockdown

Lawmakers are expected to release a long-awaited report on whether former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson deliberately misled Parliament over COVID lockdown-flouting parties at his Downing Street office.

Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson deliberately misled Parliament about the lockdown-flouting parties that undermined his credibility and contributed to his downfall, a committee of lawmakers said on June 15 after a year-long investigation.

A scathing report from the House of Commons Privileges Committee found that Mr. Johnson's actions and his response to the committee were such a flagrant violation of the rules that they warranted a 90-day suspension from Parliament.

While a condemning indictment of the former prime minister's conduct, the recommendation is largely symbolic because Mr. Johnson angrily quit as a lawmaker Friday after the committee informed him of its conclusions.

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Mr. Johnson, 58, described the committee as a “kangaroo court” that conducted a “witch hunt” to drive him out of Parliament. A majority of the panel's seven members come from Mr. Johnson's Conservative Party.

“The committee now says that I deliberately misled the House, and at the moment I spoke I was consciously concealing from the House my knowledge of illicit events," Mr. Johnson said in a heated statement released in response.

“This is rubbish. It is a lie. In order to reach this deranged conclusion, the Committee is obliged to say a series of things that are patently absurd, or contradicted by the facts."