WASHINGTON — After Rep. Tony Gonzales, R-Texas, admitted in March to a sexual relationship with a staff member who later took her own life, House Republican leaders called for him to end his reelection campaign but stopped short of pressing him to resign from Congress.

On Monday, Speaker Mike Johnson and other top Republicans remained mum about Gonzales’ future in the House after a new batch of texts surfaced indicating that his extramarital affair with Regina Santos-Aviles was part of a pattern of seeking inappropriate sexual relationships with female subordinates.

In a tranche of explicit texts reported by The San Antonio Express-News, which have not been independently verified by The New York Times, Gonzales appears to have pressed a former campaign aide in 2020 to send him nude photographs and to have sex with him.

The Express-News said that the staff member shared her experience with the paper after reading about the Gonzales’ relationship with Santos-Aviles, saying that she saw similarities in how Gonzales had treated her.

Republicans Can’t Afford to Lose Another Member

The publication of the texts presents a fresh dilemma for Johnson, who is dangerously close to losing what is left of his tiny majority and cannot afford the resignation of another Republican. Gonzales dropped his reelection bid after admitting to the affair with his former congressional aide, but he is still a member of Congress in good standing, with the ability to vote on legislation, attend confidential briefings and draw his $174,000 salary.

The explicit conversation with his former political director took place in June 2020, according to the Express-News, four years before the affair with Santos-Aviles, which Gonzales has described as a “lapse in judgment” and a “mistake.”

“I asked God to forgive me, and he has,” Gonzales told a right-wing radio host, Joe Pags, when he admitted to the affair in March, after months of dodging questions about it.

The new text messages suggest that it was not the first time he had tried to press a female subordinate into a sexual relationship.

“I know what I want and I won’t stop until I get it,” Gonzales texted the woman working as his campaign’s political director in June 2020, according to the report, asking her repeatedly to send him nude photographs even after she demurred. “What kind of panties do you wear?” he asked her in one exchange. In another, he asked her in graphic terms to perform a sexual act on him.

Gonzales and the former aide never had a sexual relationship, according to the Express-News, which did not name her. She told the paper that she had eventually parted ways with Gonzales and now volunteers for his former Republican primary opponent, Brandon Herrera.

The Express-News said it had verified that the texts were sent from Gonzales’ cellphone number, and that campaign finance filings showed that the woman who shared them had worked on his campaign.

Gonzales did not respond to a request for comment about the new messages. A spokesperson for Johnson referred back to the speaker’s statement from March, in which Johnson called on Gonzales to end his reelection campaign.

Gonzales has been absent from votes since announcing he would suspend his reelection campaign. He did not attend President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address in February.

Florida Republican Wants to Expel Gonzales Immediately

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, the Florida Republican who previously moved to censure Gonzales, said in an interview that the pattern he had exhibited was “telltale predator behavior” and added: “If I could expel him tomorrow, I would.”

The House Ethics Committee is currently conducting an investigation into Gonzales, and investigators on the panel have told lawmakers there is more to unearth about Gonzales’ inappropriate conduct toward subordinates, according to a person familiar with the committee’s internal deliberations, who disclosed it on the condition of anonymity.

Luna said that she had also viewed more lewd text messages sent by Gonzales that have not yet been made public.

But lawmakers and staff members on the Ethics Committee have been grappling with whether they should continue digging, or simply move ahead quickly with the facts on hand and bring to the floor a vote on a potential expulsion. They are also aware of the growing frustration internally at the snail’s pace at which the panel typically operates.

There has been some informal discussion of pairing a vote on Gonzales with an upcoming vote on the possible expulsion of Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, the Florida Democrat charged with stealing $5 million in Federal Emergency Management Agency money for her campaign.

That would make it easier, politically, for Republicans to vote to expel Gonzales. Johnson right now can afford just one defection on any party-line vote if all members are present — and in an election year, they seldom are.

“I’d vote to expel both him and Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick,” Luna wrote on social media. “Both need to go.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Annie Karni/Eric Lee

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