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The House Ethics Committee on Monday announced that it had found Rep. Chuck Edwards’s (R-N.C.) conduct with two young staff members had violated “the spirit” of the chamber’s rules against sexual harassment and unwanted advances and recommended he be formally censured by the full House.
Edwards, who is married, had engaged in “highly unprofessional” conduct with two members of his staff that “made the women feel uncomfortable, and/or gave the appearance of a sexual or romantic advance,” the report from the committee said.
That conduct included bringing one staffer on a trip to New York City that lasted an extra day for his birthday and included extra activities like a helicopter ride and Broadway show; writing poems for a staffer and crying during a slideshow at her going away office party; telling a staffer he left early from an event because she brought a date; sending personal texts late in the evenings; paying for massages and spa treatments for the staffer; and paying for a singer to go to a staffer’s birthday party to sing Ed Sheeran’s Hills of Aberfeldy and saying it was “from a special someone.”
The committee found staffers had fear of professional consequences if they rejected his advances.
“Taken individually, many of Representative Edwards’ actions were at minimum inappropriate; a Member of Congress should not single out a staffer and isolate them from other staff, make frequent comments regarding that person’s appearance and weight, send messages in the middle of the night, text staff deeply personal and seemingly romantic thoughts, intrude on personal occasions without invitation, pay for personal vacations, and spend thousands of dollars on gifts for staffers. That Representative Edwards did all these things to two young staffers, repeatedly over a sustained period, was beyond inappropriate,” the committee report said.
“In his interview with the Committee, the Congressman repeatedly asserted that he knows well what constitutes ‘sexual harassment,’ and seemed to believe that by avoiding inappropriate physical touch, explicitly sexual comments, and occasionally telling the staffers that they were free to put up boundaries with him, he had immunized himself from such a charge. That is not the case,” the report said.
The Hill has reached out to Edwards for comment.
The panel’s recommended censure resolution does not explicitly accuse Edwards of sexual harassment, but it adopts the report on the Ethics panel’s findings. It also does not call for Edwards to be removed from committees or face other consequences other than a formal reprimand.
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