Given Democratic Congresswoman and Senate candidate Mazie Hirono‘s resignation from the House Ethics Committee last week, Politico‘s recent coverage of a brewing scandal involving the committee caught our eye.

The news service reported that the Ethics Committee’s former staff director accused committee lawyers of compromising high-profile investigations. According to Politico, the staff director said the lawyers secretly shared information with Republicans about the investigations of Democratic Reps. Maxine Waters and Charles Rangel. (Read the full story.) 

Asked on Tuesday about the reported scandal, Hirono said the situation predated her service on the Ethics Committee. 

“That happened before I was asked to serve on the committee,” Hirono said. “I ended my tenure because, as you can see, I hardly want to contribute to any kind of partisan or political criticism of the committee’s work. This is the only bipartisan, equal-representation committee in the entire Congress.”

Pressed about the partisan debate within the committee that Politico reported, Hirono said she has no part in it. 

“That was happening in the last committee. I don’t have information about that.”