GOP Rep. Gonzales ending reelection bid after admitting to affair with late staffer

By Sarah Ferris, CNN

(CNN) — GOP Texas Rep. Tony Gonzales said he is ending his reelection bid after admitting to an affair with a former staffer who later died by suicide.

“After deep reflection and with the support of my loving family, I have decided not to seek re-election while serving out the rest of this Congress with the same commitment I’ve always had to my district,” he wrote in a statement post on X.

Six years ago, Gonzales, a Navy verteran, pulled off an upset in a battleground House seat — with the help of then-campaign chief Tom Emmer.

But in a fiery and emotional phone call on Thursday, Emmer, now the No. 3 House Republican, delivered what he considered the hard truth after Gonzales acknowledged an affair with a former staffer who later died by suicide. He urged Gonzales to drop his reelection bid, arguing that he had lied to Emmer himself and the public.

“I am asking you to withdraw because you told me something else. And you are now acknowledging that what you told me is not accurate. I think you owe it to all of us,” Emmer said in an interview, recalling his earlier conversation with Gonzales. “I told him, you put the speaker in a bad position. You put everybody else in a bad position by doing this.”

Within hours, the full GOP leadership team had adopted the same position in a stunning public statement.

Shortly after the call with Gonzales, Emmer informed his fellow GOP leaders in a private meeting that he planned to publicly call on Gonzales to step aside in the campaign, according to three people with knowledge of the conversation. Inside the room, party leaders agreed, the people said. Johnson’s office noted that the statement was a team decision.

Gonzales’ future is not entirely clear in the House. For now, he has said he will not resign and plans to run for reelection. But Emmer specifically warned him in that phone call that if he refused to bow out, he would almost certainly face a vote calling for his expulsion. And Republican leaders may not be able to stop that from happening.

Notably, however, GOP leaders have not called for Gonzales to resign his seat in the chamber’s narrow majority.

On Wednesday, Gonzales acknowledged the affair with the staffer who worked in Gonzales’ district office in Uvalde, Texas, a violation of House rules. But he had said earlier in the day, despite facing questions and intense scrutiny amid allegations of the affair, that he would stay in the race to hold onto his seat in Texas.

“I made a mistake, and I had a lapse in judgment, and there was a lack of faith, and I take full responsibility for those actions,” Gonzales said in an interview released Wednesday evening with a conservative talk show host. “Since then, I’ve reconciled with my wife Angel. I’ve asked God to forgive me, which he has. And my faith is as strong as ever.”

Earlier on Wednesday, the House Ethics Committee announced that it was forming an investigative panel to probe allegations of sexual misconduct and inappropriate favoritism against Gonzales.

Asked why Gonzales should not resign if they believe he is not fit for reelection, multiple GOP leadership aides point out that the investigations are ongoing, that it’s not clear if he broke a federal law and that removing him now would deprive his voters of a representative. Johnson, for his part, has argued that calling on him not to run for reelection was already an enormous step undertaken by the leadership team.

“We always want due process to play out here, but leadership put out a statement. It speaks for itself. We’ve encouraged him to drop out of the race for reelection. I think that is the — you know, politically, that’s a death penalty, OK?“ Johnson told CNN’s Manu Raju when pressed on why he was not calling for the congressman to step down from Congress right away.

Johnson has also been under enormous pressure from his conference to deal with the issue.

Prior speakers, from Nancy Pelosi to Paul Ryan, have used their powers to force members to resign amid serious allegations of misconduct. But Johnson – who frequently talks about his deeply religious background – has repeatedly said he would let Congress’ ethics investigation play out, though he has called the allegations “alarming and detestable.”

But some of Johnson’s more vocal antagonists have argued the speaker is choosing to keep Gonzales in Congress for the rest of the year solely because of his tight majority – which Johnson has firmly denied. The House has a historically narrow margin and currently GOP leaders can only afford a single defection from their ranks to pass bills on a party-line vote.

GOP Rep. Thomas Massie, a frequent “no” vote on leadership priorities, argued the only reason that Johnson wasn’t forcing the issue was that “he’s trying to protect the slim majority,” adding, “But I think he runs the risk of jeopardizing our majority in November because it’s sending the wrong message.”

Fellow Republican, Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina, also voiced frustration that Johnson was waiting for the investigation to play out – despite the public allegations.

“That’s the answer for everything in this place. That’s why everybody gets away with everything here,” Mace said.

Gonzales faces fellow Republican Brandon Herrera in a runoff for the Republican primary for Texas’ 23rd District on May 26.

This story has been updated with additional details.

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CNN’s Manu Raju, Lauren Fox and Aileen Graef contributed to this report.