Here's how it went down:

In a closed door, private meeting Monday night, the House Republican rank-and-file voted to cut the legs out from the ethics panel, an independent watchdog group created in 2008 under then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi following a series of high-profile, embarrassing scandals. The ethics change, which prompted an outcry from Democrats and government watchdog groups, is part of a rules package that the full House will vote on Tuesday. In a closed-door meeting Monday, a day before the start of the 115th Congress, the House GOP adopted a rules package amendment to put the Office of Congressional Ethics under the jurisdiction of the House Ethics Committee. Word emerged late Monday that House Speaker Paul Ryan and his top deputy, Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, had urged their caucus to back down before the vote, with an aide close to Ryan familiar with the discussions telling CNN on Tuesday the speaker had been "against the amendment and opposed it throughout." “Republicans claim they want to ‘drain the swamp,’ but the night before the new Congress gets sworn in, the House GOP has eliminated the only independent ethics oversight of their actions,” Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California said in a statement. He said the House panel would exercise that oversight only to “ensure the office is properly following its rules and laws,” and said he’s instructed the House committee not to “interfere with the office’s investigations or prevent it from doing its job.”

Kellyanne Conway, a top adviser to the president-elect, said earlier Tuesday she hadn’t discussed the vote with Trump, who used the anti-corruption slogan on the campaign trail yet has been silent so far on the House measure.
The Republican-led U.S. House of Representatives cancels plans approved on Monday, following widespread criticism, including a tweet by President-elect Trump, that would have weakened the House's independent ethics watchdog, the Office of Congressional Ethics.