A sworn ethics complaint filed with the House Ethics Committee alleges Rep. Lauren Boebert had sexual relationships with three members of her congressional staff, claims her ex-husband dismisses as "fairy tale" propaganda.
David B. Wheeler, founder of the opposition research group American Muckrakers, filed the complaint naming three current and former Boebert staffers: Clarice Navarro, who served as the Colorado Republican's district director from January 2021 to January 2025; Raven Finegan, her current district chief of staff; and Jeffrey Small, her former chief of staff from 2021 to 2025. Breitbart News reported that Boebert's office did not respond to a request for comment by the time of publication.
The complaint lays out financial figures that Wheeler's group frames as evidence of impropriety. Navarro received roughly $449,391 in total House pay across her four-year tenure and $30,650 in year-end bonuses paid from taxpayer funds, bonuses the complaint alleges were "for the relationship, not for official work." Small collected $767,892 in taxpayer-funded salary over the same period and received a $10,000 campaign payment on his way out the door in January 2025.
Those are the numbers. Whether they reflect anything beyond standard congressional compensation remains an open question, one the House Ethics Committee has not publicly addressed.
The most explosive financial allegation centers on Navarro. American Muckrakers claims that after leaving her role, Navarro told Boebert she intended to file her own ethics complaint. In or about March 2025, Navarro allegedly received approximately $200,000, a payment the complaint characterizes as made "to make it go away." The source of those funds, the complaint states, is unknown.
The complaint also alleges that sexual relations between Boebert and Navarro took place in the district office, in a vehicle for which Navarro collected House mileage reimbursements, and in hotel rooms paid for by Boebert's campaign. None of these claims have been independently verified. American Muckrakers says its sources possess "text messages, bank records, court documents, and recorded conversations," but the group has not released that material publicly.
Congressional misconduct scandals have a long history of taxpayer-funded quiet endings. The New York Post reported that the Office of Congressional Workplace Rights has paid out more than $17 million to settle nearly 300 workplace dispute cases, including sexual harassment claims, since 1997, with the identities of lawmakers involved kept secret.
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) has pushed to expose that list, writing that "Congress has secretly paid out more than $17 million of your money to quietly settle charges of harassment (sexual and other forms) in Congressional offices. Don't you think we should release the names of the Representatives? I do."
Boebert's ex-husband weighed in through what the American Muckrakers report describes as a screenshot of apparent messages. Asked whether he knew about the alleged affair, Jayson Boebert said the group had "bad sources" and called the entire matter fabricated:
"It is all a fairy tale made up propaganda."
Boebert filed for divorce from Jayson Boebert on April 25, stating the marriage was "irretrievably broken." The couple's split was one of several personal controversies that followed the congresswoman as she switched districts and won re-election.
The complaint also drags former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) into the narrative. An unidentified source cited in the American Muckrakers report claims Boebert, Navarro, and Gaetz participated in a "threesome." Gaetz responded on X with characteristic bluntness:
"I am requesting that anyone with video of me in this alleged 'threesome' release said evidence IMMEDIATELY! Unedited, please."
Among the more colorful claims in the complaint is an alleged physical altercation between Boebert and Navarro at Hooch Aspen, a cocktail bar in Aspen owned by Quinn Gallagher. The complaint describes Gallagher as a "one-time lover of Boebert" who was involved in the 2023 incident at a Beetlejuice theater performance that drew national attention. American Muckrakers' report states:
"Our sources claim that Navarro and Boebert got into a 'knock-down, drag-out and physical argument', at Hooch Aspen. According to our sources, Navarro was upset with Boebert flirting with Gallagher and a fight ensued. Our sources claim there is a video of the fight inside Hooch Aspen. We are seeking to locate this video and will post here and turn over to investigators when we receive it."
No video has surfaced publicly. The group acknowledged it is still trying to locate the footage.
The House Ethics Committee has not disclosed whether it has acknowledged receipt of Wheeler's complaint or opened any inquiry. That silence is not unusual, the committee rarely comments on pending matters, but it leaves the allegations in limbo. The committee has faced growing pressure to act more transparently on misconduct cases involving sitting members of both parties.
The Boebert complaint lands at a moment when congressional accountability for personal misconduct remains one of Washington's most stubborn problems. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) proposed a resolution that would have forced the Ethics Committee to release all sexual misconduct and harassment reports involving members or their staffers. A bipartisan majority, 175 Republicans and 182 Democrats, voted to bury the measure by referring it to the very committee it targeted, effectively killing public disclosure.
That vote revealed something both parties would rather not discuss: neither side wants sunlight on the settlement system. Congress's Office of Compliance paid victims more than $17 million in 268 settlements since the 1990s, drawing funds from a special U.S. Treasury account rather than individual lawmakers' offices. The arrangement means taxpayers foot the bill while never learning who cost them the money.
Efforts to impose real consequences have stalled repeatedly. The Washington Examiner noted that a loophole still permits convicted lawmakers to collect their congressional pensions even after resigning under a cloud of misconduct allegations. Rep. Claudia Tenney introduced legislation to close that gap, but the bill has not advanced.
Several Republican members have faced ethics-related consequences in recent months, from censure recommendations to criminal referrals. The pattern raises a straightforward question: if the institution cannot police itself, why should voters trust it to police anything else?
Wheeler and American Muckrakers are not neutral actors. The group has a track record of targeting Republican officials, and its founder's complaint is built on claims from unnamed sources whose evidence has not been made public. Jayson Boebert's dismissal and Gaetz's sardonic response underscore that the accused parties reject the allegations outright. Without the text messages, bank records, and recordings that American Muckrakers says it possesses, the complaint remains an accusation, not a finding.
But the financial details in the complaint, nearly $450,000 in House pay, $30,650 in taxpayer-funded bonuses, a $200,000 post-departure payment from an unknown source, deserve scrutiny regardless of the sexual allegations. Taxpayers paid those salaries and bonuses. If the money went where it was supposed to go, the Ethics Committee can say so. If it didn't, the public deserves to know.
And that is precisely the problem with how Congress handles misconduct: the institution that creates the rules for everyone else keeps exempting itself from the most basic one, answering for how it spends other people's money.
Voters don't ask for perfection from their representatives. They ask for honesty about where the dollars went, and a system that stops burying the answers.
