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Report Finds Boris Johnson Deliberately Misled UK Parliament

FILE - Boris Johnson leaves his house in London, on March 22, 2023. Former 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 Thursday, June 15, 2023 after a year-long investigation. (AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali, File)
FILE - Boris Johnson leaves his house in London, on March 22, 2023. Former 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 Thursday, June 15, 2023 after a year-long investigation. (AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali, File)
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Report Finds Boris Johnson Deliberately Misled UK Parliament

FILE - Boris Johnson leaves his house in London, on March 22, 2023. Former 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 Thursday, June 15, 2023 after a year-long investigation. (AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali, File)
FILE - Boris Johnson leaves his house in London, on March 22, 2023. Former 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 Thursday, June 15, 2023 after a year-long investigation. (AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali, File)

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 Thursday after a year-long investigation.

A scathing report from the House of Commons Privileges Committee found that 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, The Associated Press reported.

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

“We have concluded above that in deliberately misleading the House, Mr Johnson committed a serious contempt,″ the committee’s report said.

“The contempt was all the more serious because it was committed by the Prime Minister, the most senior member of the government. There is no precedent for a Prime Minister having been found to have deliberately misled the House.″

The committee also said Johnson should not be granted a pass to Parliament’s grounds.

Johnson, 58, fought back in a statement tinged by fury. He 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 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,” Johnson said.

“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.”

The report is just the latest episode in the “partygate” scandal that has distracted lawmakers since local news organizations revealed that members of Johnson’s staff held a series of parties in 2020 and 2021 when such gatherings were prohibited by pandemic restrictions. The full House of Commons will now debate the committee’s report and decide whether it concurs with the panel’s findings and recommended sanctions.

Johnson angrily quit as a lawmaker on Friday after the committee informed him in advance that he would be sanctioned.

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At Least 13 People Killed in Pakistani Strikes on Suspected Militant Hideouts in Afghanistan

In this file photo, taken on August 3, 2021, Pakistan Army troops patrol along the fence on the Pakistan Afghanistan border at Big Ben hilltop post in Khyber district. (AP/File)
In this file photo, taken on August 3, 2021, Pakistan Army troops patrol along the fence on the Pakistan Afghanistan border at Big Ben hilltop post in Khyber district. (AP/File)
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At Least 13 People Killed in Pakistani Strikes on Suspected Militant Hideouts in Afghanistan

In this file photo, taken on August 3, 2021, Pakistan Army troops patrol along the fence on the Pakistan Afghanistan border at Big Ben hilltop post in Khyber district. (AP/File)
In this file photo, taken on August 3, 2021, Pakistan Army troops patrol along the fence on the Pakistan Afghanistan border at Big Ben hilltop post in Khyber district. (AP/File)

Local Afghans and the Pakistani Taliban said Wednesday that civilians, including women and children, were killed after Pakistan launched rare airstrikes inside neighboring Afghanistan.
Pakistani security officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity in line with regulations, told The Associated Press that Tuesday's operation was to dismantle a training facility and kill insurgents in the province of Paktika, bordering Afghanistan.
Residents in the area told an AP reporter over the phone that at least 13 people were left dead, adding that the death toll could be higher. They also said the wounded were transported to a local hospital.
Meanwhile, in a statement, Mohammad Khurasani, the spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban or Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, claimed that 50 people, including 27 women and children, have died in the strikes.
Pakistan has not commented on the strikes. However, on Wednesday, the Pakistani military said security forces killed 13 insurgents in an overnight intelligence-based operation in South Waziristan, a district located along eastern Afghanistan's Paktika province.
The strikes are likely to further spike tensions between the two countries. Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban government denounced the attack, saying on Tuesday that most of the victims were refugees from the Waziristan region and promising retaliation.
The TTP is a separate group but also a close ally of the Afghan Taliban, who seized power in Afghanistan in August 2021.
In March, Pakistan said intelligence-based strikes took place in the border regions inside Afghanistan.
Pakistan has seen innumerable militant attacks in the past two decades but there has been an uptick in recent months. The latest was this weekend when at least 16 Pakistani soldiers were killed when TTP attacked a checkpoint in the country’s northwest.
Pakistani officials have accused the Taliban of not doing enough to combat militant activity across the shared border, a charge the Afghan Taliban government denies, saying it does not allow anyone to carry out attacks against any country.