Speaker Mike Johnson and other top Republicans in the House have called on embattled MAGA Rep. Tony Gonzales to drop his reelection bid.
The married father of six remained defiant in the face of bombshell reports that he had an affair with and sexually harassed his ex-staffer before she died by suicide last year.
This week, the House Ethics Committee announced it was launching an investigation into the 45-year-old Texas lawmaker’s conduct.
“Congressman Gonzales has said he will fully cooperate with the investigation. We have encouraged him to address these very serious allegations directly with his constituents and his colleagues,” Johnson and others said in a statement.
“In the meantime, Leadership has asked Congressman Gonzales to withdraw from his race for re-election,” they added.
The Texas Republican is heading into a tough primary runoff in May against a pro-MAGA conservative challenger in the competitive Texas 23rd congressional district after he failed to clinch more than 50 percent of the vote Tuesday night.
It came weeks after the first reports that Gonzales’ former aide, Regina Santos-Aviles, admitted to the affair in a text months before she set herself on fire in the yard of her Uvalde home in September.
Other text messages showed Gonzales pressured Santos-Aviles to share a sexy picture and asked her about her favorite sexual position despite her warning that he’d gone too far.
Leading up to the primary on Tuesday, Johnson had said to let it “play out,” but he did a 180 one day after the probe into Gonzales was announced.
Gonzales had previously tried to dismiss the affair allegations as “blackmail” and “coordinated political attacks” as he ran for reelection, but he fessed up to having the affair on Wednesday in an interview.
“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.
The Texas congressman came clean about his infidelity on the MAGA-friendly The Joe Pags Show podcast, where he claimed he has since reconciled with his wife and has asked god to forgive him.
While House leadership waited until the ethics investigation and confession to call on Gonzales to drop his reelection bid, more than a handful of the lawmaker’s GOP colleagues on the hill had called on him to resign after the text messages went public.
But Republican House leaders have been facing a mounting dilemma on how to proceed because if Gonzales resigned, they would lose their majority.
Republicans currently hold 218 seats, while Democrats hold 214. A special election to fill the vacated seat previously held by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene takes place on March 10.
In his primary on Tuesday, Gonzales fell slightly behind pro-MAGA challenger Brandon Herrera heading into the runoff by less than 1,000 votes.
Herrera, a gun rights advocate and right-wing social media influencer, praised Republican leaders for calling on the congressman to exit the race.
“I would like to thank Speaker Johnson and House leadership for holding Congressman Tony Gonzales accountable for actions that have tarnished the office,” he wrote on X. “I’m looking forward to representing the district the way the people of West Texas have always deserved.”
The Daily Beast asked Gonzales’ campaign for comment.
