By David Morgan
WASHINGTON, March 4 (Reuters) – The U.S. House of Representatives Ethics Committee will probe allegations of sexual misconduct and favoritism against Representative Tony Gonzales, a Texas Republican who has been engulfed by claims related to an alleged affair with a former staffer who later died by suicide, the committee said on Wednesday.
Gonzales, who denies the allegations, also faces possible legislative action from fellow Republican Anna Paulina Luna, a hardliner who filed two measures on Wednesday to censure him and strip him of his committee assignments.
Gonzales’ office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The actions came a day after the 45-year-old three-term congressman was forced into a Texas primary runoff in May against Republican challenger Brandon Herrera, a hardline conservative endorsed by the hardline House Freedom Caucus.
The ethics committee said it would investigate Gonzales to determine whether he “engaged in sexual misconduct towards an individual employee in his congressional office and/or discriminated unfairly by dispensing special favors or privileges.”
Several House Republicans have called for Gonzales to resign or drop out of the campaign after the San Antonio Express-News published explicit text messages from him to his then-staff member Regina Santos-Aviles, who died by suicide last September.
Gonzales trailed Herrera by less than 1,000 votes after Tuesday’s primary, with neither candidate receiving 50%, necessitating a runoff. He defeated Herrera, a YouTube influencer and gun rights advocate known as “the AK Guy,” in the 2024 primary by only a few hundred votes.
“During my six years in Congress not a single formal complaint has been levied against my office. Now days away from an election, coordinated political attacks reign in. IT WONT WORK. Half way through early voting and the intensity resides w/ TG voters. I’d rather be us than them,” Gonzales said in a February 22 post on X.
(Reporting by David Morgan; editing by Scott Malone and David Gaffen)
