Ethics panel is investigating Texas Rep. Tony Gonzales over affair allegations

WASHINGTON (AP) — The House Ethics Committee said Wednesday that it has opened an investigation of Rep. Tony Gonzales, R-Texas, over allegations that include having an affair with an aide.

The top Republican and Democratic members on the committee said in a joint statement that an investigative panel would look into whether Gonzales engaged in sexual misconduct toward an employee in his office and whether he discriminated unfairly by dispensing special favors or privileges.

Gonzales’ office did not immediately reply to a request for comment from The Associated Press.

The congressman, now in his third term, has said he would not step down in response to the allegations, telling reporters at the Capitol recently that there will be opportunities for all the details and facts to come out.

“What you’ve seen is not all the facts,” Gonzales said.

Gonzales, a father of six, first won his seat in 2020 after retiring from a 20-year career in the Navy that included time in Iraq and Afghanistan. On Tuesday, he was forced into a May runoff against Brandon Herrera, a gun manufacturer and YouTube gun-rights influencer who narrowly lost to Gonzales in the 2024 primary.

The San Antonio Express-News reported that it had obtained text messages in which the former Gonzales staffer, Regina Ann Santos-Aviles, wrote to a colleague that she had an affair with the congressman.

The AP has not independently obtained copies of the messages. A lawyer for Adrian Aviles, Santos-Aviles’ husband, has said the husband found out about the affair before his wife’s death.

Santos-Aviles, 35, died in September 2025 after setting herself on fire in the backyard of her home in Uvalde, Texas. The Bexar County Medical Examiner’s Office later ruled her death a suicide.