{"id":68086,"date":"2026-03-04T15:21:42","date_gmt":"2026-03-04T20:21:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/04\/house-republican-faces-ethics-investigation-over-affair-allegations\/"},"modified":"2026-03-04T15:21:42","modified_gmt":"2026-03-04T20:21:42","slug":"house-republican-faces-ethics-investigation-over-affair-allegations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/04\/house-republican-faces-ethics-investigation-over-affair-allegations\/","title":{"rendered":"House Republican faces ethics investigation over affair allegations"},"content":{"rendered":"

The House Ethics Committee<\/a> opened an investigation into Rep. Tony Gonzales, R-Texas, over allegations that he had an affair with a political aide.<\/p>\n

Committee leaders announced Wednesday that they launched the investigation into whether Gonzales, a married father of six, engaged in sexual misconduct with a female<\/a> member of his staff and whether he doled out special favors or privileges as a result.<\/p>\n

Gonzales has said he has no plan to step down in the face of the accusations, saying there are more details to be released regarding the situation.<\/p>\n

“What you\u2019ve seen is not all the facts,” Gonzales told reporters last month.<\/p>\n

REP TONY GONZALES HIT WITH HOUSE ETHICS PROBE OVER SEXUAL MISCONDUCT ALLEGATIONS<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

The three-term congressman argued last month that he was being “blackmailed” in connection with the case. Controversy first arose after the San Antonio Express-News<\/u><\/a> reported they obtained text messages in which the former staffer, Regina Ann Santos-Aviles, wrote to a colleague that she had an affair with the lawmaker.<\/p>\n

Santos-Aviles later died after setting herself<\/a> on fire.<\/p>\n

Gonzales took to social media last month and accused Santos-Aviles’ husband of “blackmail,” sharing a partial screenshot of an email from the widower and claiming he was seeking money.<\/p>\n

“I WILL NOT BE BLACKMAILED,” Gonzales wrote in a Feb. 19 post on X. “Disgusting to see people profit politically and financially off a tragic death.”<\/p>\n

REPUBLICAN CONGRESSMAN ACCUSED OF AFFAIR WITH LATE AIDE TO FACE RUNOFF ELECTION<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

In the email posted by Gonzales, attorney Robert Barrera discussed a possible lawsuit against the lawmaker and a potential settlement with a nondisclosure agreement. The email says that the maximum recoverable amount is $300,000.<\/p>\n

Barrera denied he was trying to blackmail Gonzales.<\/p>\n

“It is a desperate attempt to make him look again like a political victim,” Barrera told The Associated Press last month. “There\u2019s no blackmail here. I mean, it\u2019s just ridiculous allegations.”<\/p>\n

According to Barrera, the email that Gonzales posted online was part of back-and-forth discussions he had been having with the lawmaker\u2019s attorney after Aviles decided he wanted to recover damages through a potential lawsuit<\/a> on behalf of his wife under the Congressional Accountability Act.<\/p>\n

The Associated Press contributed to this report.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The House Ethics Committee opened an investigation into Rep. Tony Gonzales, R-Texas, over allegations that he had an affair with a political aide. Committee leaders announced Wednesday that they launched the investigation into whether Gonzales, a married father of six, engaged in sexual misconduct with a female member of his staff and whether he doled … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-68086","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68086","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68086"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68086\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}