{"id":278786,"date":"2026-04-21T17:13:41","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T17:13:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/278786\/"},"modified":"2026-04-21T17:13:41","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T17:13:41","slug":"house-ethics-panel-ends-tony-gonzales-probe-after-resignation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/278786\/","title":{"rendered":"House ethics panel ends Tony Gonzales probe after resignation"},"content":{"rendered":"

The U.S. House Ethics Committee says it can no longer continue<\/a> its investigation into former Rep. Tony Gonzales after his resignation, meaning any findings from the sexual misconduct probe involving an alleged relationship with a staffer will not be released.<\/p>\n

In a new statement<\/a>, the committee emphasizes it has \u201czero tolerance\u201d for sexual misconduct and a long track record of investigating such allegations. But it also highlights a limitation: when a member of Congress resigns, the committee loses jurisdiction to investigate them.<\/p>\n

Some sexual misconduct matters that the Committee may have otherwise reviewed were removed from the Committee\u2019s jurisdiction<\/a> by the subject\u2019s resignation, retirement, or departure from House employment.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s what happened in Gonzales\u2019 case, which had been a publicly disclosed investigation into an alleged sexual relationship with a staffer.<\/p>\n

Two sources familiar with the investigation told NBC News in February that the probe had wrapped up, but the OCC could not transmit its report to the House Ethics Committee within a 60-day window before an election.<\/p>\n

In that March primary election, Gonzales made it to a runoff with Republican challenger Brandon Herrera, but later dropped out of the race.<\/p>\n

Gonzales admitted to having an affair with his former regional district director, Regina Santos-Aviles, on a podcast in recent months. Text messages previously obtained by News 4 and Fox San Antonio showed Santos-Aviles acknowledging the affair to another staffer, while her husband released additional messages further showing the former Congressman’s advances.<\/p>\n

RELATED: ‘This is too far’: Texts show late-night exchanges between Rep. Gonzales, staffer<\/a><\/p>\n

In recent weeks, another staffer came forward<\/a> with dozens of pages of text messages with Gonzales, many of them sexual in nature.<\/p>\n

Santos-Aviles died after setting herself on fire in her Uvalde backyard. The Bexar County Medical Examiner ruled her death a suicide. <\/p>\n

Attorneys for her husband, Adrian Aviles, say the relationship with Gonzales set off a chain of events that contributed to her death.<\/p>\n

\u201cAdrian, on behalf of his family, is glad this ordeal is over. He’s glad that Tony Gonzales has finally been forced to accept responsibility and has suffered the consequences of his conduct,\u201d Attorney Bobby Barrera said. \u201cAs outrageous as it was, without the force of the other members of Congress, he would have never resigned and never accepted responsibility.\u201d<\/p>\n

Barrera says the family continues to grieve, but believes Gonzales\u2019 departure brings a level of accountability after months of controversy.<\/p>\n

The Ethics Committee\u2019s statement does not name Gonzales or Rep. Eric Swalwell, who resigned the same day after allegations of sexual misconduct. It broadly explains situations like theirs: in some cases, investigations into sexual misconduct end prematurely because the subject resigns or leaves office. The committee notes this has happened multiple times over the years, dating back decades.<\/p>\n

For allegations of sexual relationships with staffers, the committee reports it lost jurisdiction in 2019, investigating former Rep. Katie Hill.<\/p>\n

There are several cases of the committee losing jurisdiction while investigating sexual harassment of staffers. That includes Former Reps. Patrick Meehan and Blake Farenthold in 2018, and Former Reps. Trent Franks and John Conyers in 2017.<\/p>\n

The committee stresses it still aims to hold members accountable and publicly release findings when investigations are completed. It also encourages anyone with knowledge of misconduct to come forward, while reiterating a commitment to protecting victims and witnesses.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The U.S. House Ethics Committee says it can no longer continue its investigation into former Rep. Tony Gonzales…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":278787,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[151,153,152],"class_list":["post-278786","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bakersfield","tag-bakersfield","tag-bakersfield-headlines","tag-bakersfield-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278786","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=278786"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278786\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/278787"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=278786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=278786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=278786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}