House Ethics Committee recommends censure for Rep. Chuck Edwards

The House Ethics Committee found Monday that North Carolina GOP Rep. Chuck Edwards violated the “spirit” of the chamber’s rules against sexual harassment by engaging in inappropriate conduct with young staffers and recommended he face formal censure from the House.

Edwards, who is married, allegedly engaged in “highly unprofessional” conduct with two female members of his staff, which “made the women feel uncomfortable, and/or gave the appearance of a sexual or romantic advance,” the committee wrote in its report.

The panel's report does not specifically accuse Edwards of sexual harassment but claimed he acted inappropriately with the women, who feared professional consequences if they rejected his advances.

The conduct included writing poems for a staffer and crying during a slideshow at her going away office party; telling a staffer he left early from an event because she brought a date; and paying for a singer to go to a staffer’s birthday party to sing Ed Sheeran’s Hills of Aberfeldy and saying it was “from a special someone.”

“Taken individually, many of Representative Edwards’ actions were at minimum inappropriate," the report said. "A member of Congress should not single out a staffer and isolate them from other staff, make frequent comments regarding that person’s appearance and weight, send messages in the middle of the night, text staff deeply personal and seemingly romantic thoughts, intrude on personal occasions without invitation, pay for personal vacations, and spend thousands of dollars on gifts for staffers. 

"That Representative Edwards did all these things to two young staffers, repeatedly over a sustained period, was beyond inappropriate," the report added.

The committee noted that Edwards has denied that he sexually harassed any members of his staff because he did not make sexually explicit comments, physically touch any staff member inappropriately, and told staff members they could set their own boundaries. 

"While Representative Edwards denied that any of his conduct was intended as a sexual or romantic advance, his pattern of behavior would lead a reasonable observer to interpret it as such," the committee wrote.

The committee also acknowledged that it found "no evidence that Representative Edwards engaged in sexual activity with or explicitly propositioned any individual under his employ," but recommended he be censured by the full chamber. It did not recommend that he lose his committees or face other consequences.

Misty Severi is a news reporter for Just The News. You can follow her on X for more coverage.