Ms Boebert

Ethics Complaint Accuses Boebert of Affairs With Three Staffers and a $200,000 Hush Payment

An ethics complaint has been filed against Rep. Lauren Boebert over sexual relations with three members of her congressional staff, violating a 2018 rule prohibiting such relationships.

An ethics complaint signed under oath has been filed against Rep. Lauren Boebert over sexual relations between her and three members of her congressional staff.

According to the complaint filed on behalf of David B. Wheeler from American Muckrakers to the House Ethics Committee on September 17, the sexual affairs involved former District Director Clarice Navarro Ratzlaff, District Chief of Staff Raven Finegan, and former Chief of Staff Jeffrey Small.

The complaint cited a 2018 rule prohibiting such relations between the members and their staff. According to Raw Story, the rule was introduced in February 2018 after a series of scandalous harassment cases in Congress. The committee has used the rule to launch its 2019 ethics probe into former Rep. Katie Hill.

The complaint describes meetings in Ratzlaff's office, in the campaign-paid vehicle, and in hotel rooms at the campaign's expense. It also mentions over $449,000 in salary and $200,000 paid to her after her departure. Specifically, the $200,000 payment was made in March 2025, after Ratzlaff had quit and told Boebert she was going to make her own ethics complaint.

Colorado Times Recorder reports that the complaint also claims that Boebert arranged the $200,000 payment to stop Ratzlaff from making that complaint. Boebert's office hasn't responded to the newspaper's request for a statement.

Ratzlaff dismissed the allegations as "entirely false and defamatory." In addition, the House Ethics Committee hasn't announced any review yet.

Raw Story points out that the allegations rely on unnamed sources' notes that weren't included in the document. Moreover, the outlet failed to verify payroll and campaign finance figures mentioned in the complaint.

The filing received a sarcastic reply from former Rep. Matt Gaetz, an ally of Boebert. Gaetz quoted the X post that claimed sexual affairs between Boebert and three staffers as well as a threesome between the representatives and Ratzlaff.

"I am requesting that anyone with video of me in this alleged "threesome" release said evidence IMMEDIATELY! Unedited, please," Gaetz wrote in a tweet.

In turn, Gaetz quoted that X post to publicly challenge that allegation. According to NPR, the former Republican from Florida has already faced an ethics probe over those allegations. The committee issued a report in December 2024 after investigating allegations of sexual misconduct against the congressman, who denies the charges. That came after Boebert had herself complained about the misconduct of her colleagues; in April, for example, she asked why the fellow legislators are "horny" after the resignation of two congressmen amid similar accusations.

"Yeah, go to church. Find Jesus. Like, why is everybody so horny here?" Boebert quipped outside the U.S. Capitol as she walked away from reporters.

The statement was made following the resignation of former congressmen Eric Swalwell, a Democrat from California, and Tony Gonzales, a Republican from Texas. According to People, Swalwell and Gonzales made their resignations public on April 13th, while Boebert made her statement to the press outside the Capitol on April 16th.

Eric Swalwell resigned due to allegations of misconduct and sexual impropriety by several women. Gonzales quit his job amid the investigation of his misconduct with a staffer. According to Mediaite, Gonzales resigned after it was revealed that he had an affair with a staffer who eventually committed suicide.

Boebert's comments became notable because of the misconduct she displayed on surveillance footage from September 2023. The footage shows Boebert behaving inappropriately alongside her then-boyfriend, Quinn Gallagher, during a Denver performance.

Quinn and Boebert were asked to leave a Beetlejuice show after causing a scene. The footage shows Boebert dancing with her hands raised, vaping, and using her flash while taking pictures. Security guards asked the two people to leave the tour musical at the Buell Theatre on September 10, 2023, according to People.

Boebert apologized, accepted full responsibility, and ended the relationship with Gallagher.

"It's always hard whenever there's gravity put on the voters," Boebert said. "I'm here to provide levity and lift burdens off of people."

Shutdown

Nobody should be surprised that Republicans are making no effort to avoid the shutdown.

• Republicans hate government, and are quite willing to do just about anything to further their project of tearing it all down in order to install a corporate-style plutocracy
• By shutting it down, they delay the release of the Epstein Files

Adelita Grijalva was set to take her place in The House next week, but Speaker Johnson sent everybody home until October 7.

Grijalva has committed to being the deciding (218th) signature on the Discharge Petition, which will force Johnson to bring a vote to the floor on whether or not to demand DOJ to deliver the Epstein Files to Congress.

There are some other probabilities here too, not the least of which is using a shutdown to kill some functions &/or agencies that "conservatives" really don't like.

The key for me here is that OMB is talking about firing people and not putting them on furlough.

White House to agencies: Prepare mass firing plans for a potential shutdown

In memo, the Trump administration says the Reduction-in-Force plans would go beyond standard shutdown furloughs.

The White House budget office is instructing federal agencies to prepare reduction-in-force plans for mass firings during a possible government shutdown, specifically targeting employees who work for programs that are not legally required to continue.

The Office of Management and Budget move to permanently reduce the government workforce if there is a shutdown, outlined in a memo shared with POLITICO ahead of release to agencies tonight, escalates the stakes of a potential shutdown next week.

In the memo, OMB told agencies to identify programs, projects and activities where discretionary funding will lapse on Oct. 1 and no alternative funding source is available. For those areas, OMB directed agencies to begin drafting RIF plans that would go beyond standard furloughs, permanently eliminating jobs in programs not consistent with President Donald Trump’s priorities in the event of a shutdown.

The move marks a significant break from how shutdowns have been handled in recent decades, when most furloughs were temporary and employees were brought back once Congress voted to reopen government and funding was restored. This time, OMB Director Russ Vought is using the threat of permanent job cuts as leverage, upping the ante in the standoff with Democrats in Congress over government spending.

“Programs that did not benefit from an infusion of mandatory appropriations will bear the brunt of a shutdown,” OMB wrote in the memo. Agencies were told to submit their proposed RIF plans to OMB and to issue notices to employees even if they would otherwise be excepted or furloughed during a lapse in funding.

Programs that will continue regardless of a shutdown include Social Security, Medicare, veterans benefits, military operations, law enforcement, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Customs and Border Protection and air traffic control, according to an OMB official granted anonymity to share information not yet public.

The guidance comes as Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill are locked in an impasse over funding, with just days before the fiscal year ends Sept. 30. The House passed a stopgap spending measure to float federal operations through Nov. 21, but Democrats in the Senate have refused to advance it, demanding that Republicans come to the table to negotiate a bipartisan package that could include an extension of expiring Affordable Care Act subsidies.

The OMB letter notes that if Congress successfully passes a clean stopgap bill prior to Sept. 30, the additional steps outlined in this email will not be necessary.

The memo appears to vindicate warnings issued by some Democrats — most prominently Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer — during the last shutdown standoff in March. Schumer at the time moved to allow a GOP-written spending bill to pass, arguing that a shutdown would be a “gift” allowing Trump and his deputies “to destroy vital government services at a significantly faster rate than they can right now.”

Schumer says he has since revised that view, saying this month that the administration’s attacks on federal agencies “will get worse with or without [a shutdown], because Trump is lawless.”

He made a similar point Wednesday after POLITICO published details of the memo, calling it an “attempt at intimidation.”

“This is nothing new and has nothing to do with funding the government,” he said. “These unnecessary firings will either be overturned in court or the administration will end up hiring the workers back, just like they did as recently as today.”

But House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries struck a different note in an X post that appeared to take the threat seriously. He addressed it to voters in federal-worker-rich Virginia, who will soon elect a governor and other state officials.

“Their goal is to ruin your life and punish hardworking families already struggling with Trump Tariffs and inflation,” he said. “Remember in November.”

Today's Parnas

I guess the good news is that eventually, the attempts to cover shit up gets so extensive that the collection of things they're trying to keep hidden is just too big, and it starts to spill out - like it's doing now.

Also, they can scrub the study from their website, but the internet is forever.

Using the Wayback Machine

Aaron's Rundown

The Labor Department's Jobs Reports for May and were practically fabricated. What a surprise, right?

The economy did not add 260,000 jobs in those two months, as stated by The Bureau Of Labor Statistics. The real number was 34,000 new jobs for May and June - a net loss of over 250,000 jobs.

Today's Belle

This may be what we have to do - use Trump's favorite tactic against him.

ie: Delay, appeal, delay, appeal, delay, appeal ... repeat as needed.

Consequence

We'll see if the consequences stick to him or not. There will be no breath-holding here.

And I don't know how he managed to get so close to being able to just blow it all off.

• What did Trump - or Trump's transition team - think Gaetz would bring to DOJ other than the usual chaos? Was that the point?
• Was the deal that Gaetz would spend the whole time swinging a sledgehammer at the FBI, plus launching the campaign of harassment against Trump's perceived enemies?
• If the "normies" torpedoed Gaetz, how is Pam Bondi a better choice?

So many questions

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— Adam Parkhomenko (@adamparkhomenko.bsky.social) December 24, 2024 at 7:13 AM