Senate confirms referral of ethics complaint against U.S. Sen. Ruben Gallego

U.S. Senate Republican leaders Tuesday defended the
secretive process used in that chamber to investigate allegations of
wrongdoing, though they did confirm referring a complaint made against
Arizona Democratic Sen. Ruben Gallego to the Ethics Committee.

“At
the beginning, we always start very, very privately to protect members
because we don’t want to facilitate frivolous accusations,” said Senate
Ethics Committee Chairman James Lankford, R-Okla. “We want to facilitate
accurate accusations. And actually work through to be able to hold each
other to account.”

The comments came just a few hours
after Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said he would lead the effort on that
side of the Capitol to improve the process for filing an ethics
complaint, especially those that have to do with sexual harassment.  

“You
may know this, I have two daughters who work on Capitol Hill on
committee staff. (This is) very serious to me. I’m a father. I’m not
just the speaker of the House,” he said. “For that very reason we have
to protect women and anyone who feels like there is any inappropriate
behavior whatsoever. So if there are ways to tighten the rules,
suggestions, we’re seeking that from all members. We’re open to that.”

Johnson
said he hoped that any votes to change House rules would be bipartisan,
if not unanimously adopted. He also reflected on a long history of
misconduct by members of Congress. 

“There’s always been
untoward activity among political figures. I mean going back to time
immemorial. There’s always been marital infidelity. There’s always been
despicable behaviors,” he said. “It occurs to us that it may not have
been exposed and as transparent as it is today because of the very
active press corps and 24-hour news cycle and smartphones and everything
being recorded.”

Discussions around whether to keep
ethics rules and investigations as they are now or overhaul the process
began last week after California Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell and Texas
Republican Rep. Tony Gonzales both resigned amid sexual misconduct allegations. 

Florida Democratic Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick then resigned Tuesday just before the House Ethics Committee could recommend what repercussions she should face after the panel found her guilty on more than two dozen violations. 

GOP accusation on social media

Swalwell’s resignation may not be the end of that scandal, however. 

Florida Republican Rep. Anna Paulina Luna wrote in a social media post on
April 15 that it “seems like the Senate has its own trash to take out.
@LeaderJohnThune You need to look into the allegations against one of
your Senators, it’s very disturbing. My chief will be contacting your
chief.”

Her comments apparently referred to Arizona’s
Gallego, who was friends with Swalwell, but has sought to distance
himself from the former congressman since news of the allegations by
multiple women broke earlier this month. 

Thune said
during Tuesday’s press conference that “specific matter” has been
referred to the Senate Ethics Committee and that he didn’t “know the
particulars of the allegation.”

“The Ethics Committee in
the Senate is designed to ensure that this institution and its members
conduct themselves in a way befitting of the office and that we’re doing
things in an ethical manner,” Thune said.  

Gallego’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

‘A quiet manner’

Lankford
said Senate Ethics Committee members are “extremely serious about
taking on allegations, especially allegations like sexual harassment,
all the different things that are out there … But we do function in a
quiet manner.”

The committee, he said, gets “hundreds of
different allegations” that its members then work through to determine
if they should proceed. 

“As you know, in the political
world that we live in, a lot of allegations come to us that they’re
unfounded at the end of it,” Lankford said. 

The Senate
Ethics Committee, he said, is unlikely to move to a model similar to
that of the House Ethics Committee, which releases statements when it
begins investigations into members, sometimes detailing the
allegations. 

“There’s a lot more public that comes out
on it and they find out at the end of it that it becomes the theater of
the allegation,” Lankford said. “So it facilitates more allegations
because it creates more theater.”

The Senate panel hasn’t published a press release since August 2024 and its two-page report
for 2025 disclosed the committee dismissed 160 of 181 alleged
violations due to “lack of subject matter jurisdiction” or because “they
failed to provide sufficient facts as to any material violation of the
Senate rules beyond mere allegation or assertion.”

The
annual report adds the Senate panel issued zero “private or public
letters of admonition” and had no “matters resulting in a disciplinary
sanction.”

The last time the committee issued a public letter
was in March 2023, after South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham
solicited “campaign contributions in a federal building” for Georgia
senatorial candidate Herschel Walker. 

Lankford later
expanded during the afternoon press conference on his belief that some
ethics allegations are more political than genuine. 

“Our
focus is all folks have to be heard on this but we live in a political
world. In a political world if every ethics charge goes out there,
everyone then grabs that ethics charge, uses it in a campaign and says
‘There’s been an ethics charge out there, the Ethics Committee is
talking about it.’ And suddenly it becomes drama and facilitates more
things coming at us,” he said. “We want to take seriously every victim,
every accusation. But we also understand the environment that we work
in.”