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Several House Republicans joined Democrats to admonish one of their own after a bombshell investigation found that the lawmaker had engaged in “unprofessional and inappropriate conduct” with his staff.
The House voted to censure Rep. Chuck Edwards, R-N.C., as Congress has grappled with multiple incidents of alleged sexual harassment and misconduct by lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.
The censure vote on Tuesday comes on the heels of a bombshell House Ethics Committee report released last month that recommended Edwards be rebuked for “persistent unprofessional and inappropriate conduct towards two young female staffers.”
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The committee is chaired by Edwards’ fellow Republican Rep. Michael Guest, R-Miss., but acts on a bipartisan basis to investigate lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.
Guest noted on the House floor that the investigation did not find evidence that Edwards engaged in sexual activity, nor did he explicitly proposition the staffers, but that his “conduct toward two young female staffers was inappropriate and violated rules prohibiting sexual harassment,” and that it created a hostile work environment.
“The committee found that Representative Edwards was, at a minimum, blind to the reality and at worst dismissive of the impact his conduct had on the career and well-being of the women on his staff,” Guest said.
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Ahead of the vote, Edwards told Fox News Digital, “They’ll make their argument, and I’ll make mine,” and countered that the House Ethics Committee had abandoned “its own rules” in its handling of his case.
That report detailed lavish gifts, trips, and the reading of a poem to one of the staffers, going to a staffer’s home to perform chores, late-night personal texts, and taking one of the staffers to a casino, among other interactions. He ended his bid for re-election two days after its release.
He disputed the report on the House floor — after apologizing to the pair of staffers at the center of the Ethics Committee’s probe, along with his wife and family — accusing the bipartisan panel of cherry-picking the context of the incidents to fit a specific narrative.
He challenged the censure vote at hand and contended that his regret over the situation was “not an admission of sexual harassment.”
“Generosity is not sexual harassment. Caring deeply about the people with whom you’ve worked for years is not sexual harassment,” Edwards said. “And conduct that is otherwise permissible does not automatically become misconduct, simply because enough individual moments are assembled together and viewed through the darkest possible ends.”
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Still, his arguments weren’t enough to dissuade his colleagues.
Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández, D-N.M., who chairs the Democratic Women’s Caucus, contended that since Edwards “continues to show no remorse, it’s obvious that Edwards refuses to understand sexual harassment or his abuse of power.”
“If we don’t take action today, there is no opportunity for these women to receive justice,” Leger Fernández said.
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Edwards became the 30th member of the House of Representatives to be censured, which carries the penalty of a public rebuke for his conduct but does not force him to resign from his seat.
It also comes as other members of the House have grappled with their colleagues’ conduct in recent months. Earlier this year, former Reps. Eric Swalwell and Tony Gonzales both resigned on the same day.
Swalwell resigned after being hit with allegations of rape and sexual assault, while Gonzales exited Congress after being accused of sexual misconduct with a former staffer, and after he admitted to having an affair with his former staffer, Regina Santos-Aviles, who later died by setting herself on fire.
Both faced the rare threat of expulsion.
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