As the House ethics watchdog's report on accusations of office-and-campaign coordination was about to become public today, Rep. Mike Honda insists that he did nothing wrong and contended that his staff's past mistakes have been addressed by re-training and new rules. And he maintains that his constituents will forgive it all as he seeks a ninth term.

"Being in elected office for the number of years that I have, I always depend upon the good sense of the electorate to be able to ferret out what's appropriate and not appropriate, what's true and what's not true," Honda, D-San Jose, said in an exclusive interview with this newspaper. "Hopefully they know me well enough to say, 'That's not him.' "

Honda and his lawyers have had the Office of Congressional Ethics' report since it was sent to the House Ethics Committee on June 5, but won't release it before the office and committee make it public sometime today. But Honda's camp did provide the July 8 rebuttal by Honda's attorney and the lawyer representing Jennifer Van der Heide, Honda's chief of staff, and district director Meri Maben.

The investigation began after a former staffer leaked emails last year showing that Van der Heide had coordinated with Honda's campaign in February 2013 to choose guests for a State Department event at Santa Clara University that Honda was co-hosting.