Republican Rep. Chuck Edwards of North Carolina is interesting to his Home colleagues to not censure him over his conduct towards two feminine staffers.
Edwards dropped his re-election bid on Aug. 5 following an Aug. 3 Home Ethics Committee report that discovered the Republican lawmaker had “engaged in persistent unprofessional and inappropriate conduct” towards the 2 staffers. The panel really helpful Edwards’ censure, and a vote is predicted subsequent week.
Forward of the vote, nonetheless, Edwards wrote a six-page letter addressed to different Home members defending himself, saying that whereas he acknowledges a few of his colleagues might view his interactions in a different way, “context issues” in assessing them.
“An affectionate friendship is just not a sexual proposition,” Edwards wrote within the letter, dated Aug. 25 and first obtained by NOTUS and reported on Thursday. “A present is just not sexual misconduct. A praise is just not sexual misconduct. Poetry is just not sexual misconduct. Socializing with a colleague is just not sexual misconduct. Caring deeply about somebody with whom you’ve gotten labored and are available to know for years is just not sexual misconduct.”
The 65-year-old lawmaker famous that the panel concluded he had “neither engaged in sexual exercise with nor explicitly propositioned any particular person employees member,” that he “didn’t violate federal sexual harassment regulation,” and that “the allegations on this matter don’t implicate quid professional quo sexual harassment.” He claimed within the letter that his habits towards the 2 staffers was just like that towards his different employees—together with presents he’d given and journeys he’d taken with or organized for them.
Hooked up to the letter was a one-page factsheet and a memo submitted by Edwards’ counsel to the Home committee responding to the report. Edwards alleged the panel had cherry-picked sure proof to suit a story.
Whereas censure doesn’t take away a Home member from workplace, it is without doubt one of the strongest types of public rebuke within the chamber. A majority vote is required to censure a lawmaker.
TIME didn’t instantly hear again from Edwards’ workplace or the Home ethics panel when requested for remark.
Edwards is one in all a number of Home lawmakers who has confronted allegations of sexual misconduct this 12 months.
Former Reps. Eric Swalwell of California, a Democrat, and Tony Gonzales of Texas, a Republican, resigned in April underneath bipartisan stress from their colleagues and threats of expulsion amid separate allegations.
Apart from Edwards, the Home ethics panel can be investigating allegations in opposition to Republican Rep. Cory Mills of Florida, who misplaced his Aug. 18 major.
On Aug. 17, the panel additionally introduced it was reviewing allegations that Democratic Rep. Jimmy Gomez of California might have engaged in inappropriate sexual contact with a Home staffer.
What the committee discovered relating to Edwards
The ethics panel report discovered that the 2 girls concerned, who beforehand labored with Edwards from since he was a State Senator, “have been topic to more and more uncommon consideration from the Congressman whereas they labored for him, creating an surroundings the place each they and their coworkers felt uncomfortable.”
The panel detailed among the alleged cases. In a single, Edwards allegedly informed one in all his feminine staffers, who was in her early 20s and had rejected a dinner request due to rumors surrounding Rep. Edwards and a staffer, that it was “disappointing to really feel one thing that was once simple has gotten difficult.”
Per the report, Edwards had given the 2 staffers a number of presents, together with jewellery value over $1,000, in addition to “designer purses, weapons, sneakers, flowers, a laptop computer and mobile phone, KitchenAid mixer, robotic vacuum, holidays, tickets to performances, and one-on-one dinners.”
Edwards, in keeping with the report, additionally went to the home of the staffer in her 20s to “carry out chores like yardwork, decide her up and drop her off for occasions and actions along with his driver, and adorn her Christmas tree collectively (for which he skipped votes within the Home that night).” It additionally said that Edwards wrote a poem for one of many staffers that he learn aloud at her going away social gathering within the congressional workplace.
The report added that Edwards was, “at minimal blind to that actuality, and at worst, dismissive of the affect his inappropriate conduct had on the careers and wellbeing of two girls on his employees.”
Present Home guidelines state members are disallowed to have interaction in “unwelcome sexual advances or conduct” towards any worker. Edwards insisted in his letter that he’s not asking anybody to approve of his habits, however argued “most of the actions emphasised by the report are usually not themselves prohibited.”
How have Edwards’ colleagues reacted to his letter?
The condemnation has come from throughout the political aisle.
Rep. Kat Cammack of Florida, who chairs the Republican Girls’s Caucus, posted on X that “22 pages of clarification don’t change a basic truth: Members of Congress maintain extraordinary energy over their employees. With that energy comes a accountability to train sound judgment and keep applicable boundaries.”
Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández of New Mexico, chair of the Democratic Girls’s Caucus, in a press release to CNN and others, referred to the letter as “22 pages of ramblings by somebody who refuses to know sexual harassment or his abusive energy over the ladies who labored for him. His lack of regret speaks for itself.”