WASHINGTON — Rep. Chuck Edwards (R-NC) had a young female staffer “scared lowkey” after making seemingly romantic advances toward her and another woman who worked in his Capitol Hill office as part of a pattern of “persistent unprofessional and inappropriate conduct,” according to a House Ethics Committee report released Monday.
Edwards, a 65-year-old married father and grandfather, “went beyond norms of professional behavior by giving both women lavish gifts,” “commenting on the two women’s appearance,” and “inviting them to intimate dinners and vacations,” the 20-page report found of his behavior to female staffers in their early 20s.
At one point, the North Carolina Republican arranged for a singer to appear at one of the women’s birthday parties to sing Ed Sheeran’s song “Hills of Aberfeldy” — and tell her the appearance was “from a special someone,” the report stated.
“The Committee received evidence that Staffer 2 told a friend this led her to believe that the Congressman did not view her as ‘just a daughter figure’ and that she was ‘scared lowkey.’”
Among other gifts, Edwards purchased shoes, flowers, a cell phone, a laptop, a KitchenAid mixer, a robo-vacuum, jewelry exceeding $1,000, tickets to performances like “Hamilton” on Broadway, one-on-one dinners and vacations for the women.
The report noted: “Staffer 1 said she did not feel obligated to wear the purse or jewelry Representative Edwards gave her, but Staffer 2 felt ‘obligated to wear’ a necklace he bought her and when she stopped wearing it, ‘he made a comment about . . . how disappointed he is that I’m not willing to [] wear what he got me.’”
Edwards also discussed “going to strip clubs in Washington, D.C.” with at least one of the women, sent “personal texts late in the evenings,” paid for one of them to get “spa treatments,” and wrote the same female staffer a poem “at her going away party in the congressional office accompanied by a slideshow, during which he cried.”
“Several staffers present testified that they felt uncomfortable, and Representative Edwards acknowledged in his own testimony that he could tell the staff felt uncomfortable,” the report read.
Another outing with the woman identified as Staffer 2 in the report resulted in him printing out a text message exchange where she thanked the congressman for the “fun night,” to which he “drew a heart next to the message and hand-wrote ‘Perhaps my proudest personal moment!’”
And Edwards and the woman also traveled to Las Vegas for a weekend before the congressman was called back to DC for a vote to end the government shutdown.
The Ethics Committee has recommended the full House censure Edwards for his conduct toward the female staffers, both of whom were about 40 years younger than their boss and young enough to be his grandchildren.
Edwards, in the report, was quoted as having “denied that any of his conduct was intended as a sexual or romantic advance, [but] his pattern of behavior would lead a reasonable observer to interpret it as such,” according to the 10-member bipartisan committee.
Staff still felt that he had engaged in “preferential treatment” with the two women.
Ethics investigators also found that the congressman had been “intentionally deleting messages to these women that were particularly inappropriate” during their inquiry.
The Republican’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
