A sworn ethics complaint accuses Colorado Congresswoman Lauren Boebert of sexual relationships with three of her own staffers and a $200,000 payment meant to keep one of them quiet.
Quick Take
- A watchdog group filed a sworn complaint with the House Committee on Ethics on September 17, 2026.
- It names three former staffers and claims the affairs lasted from 2021 to January 2025.
- The complaint alleges a $200,000 payment after one staffer threatened to go public.
- Boebert and one named staffer both deny the claims, calling them false and politically motivated.
A Sworn Complaint Names Three Staffers
David B. Wheeler of the group American Muckrakers filed the complaint with the House Committee on Ethics on September 17, 2026. It accuses Boebert of sexual relationships with three people who worked for her: district director Clarice Navarro Ratzlaff, district chief of staff Raven Finegan, and former chief of staff Jeffrey Small. The filing names each person and their job title directly.
The complaint claims the relationship with Navarro Ratzlaff ran from 2021 through January 2025. It says encounters happened during and after work hours, in a mileage-reimbursed vehicle, and in hotel rooms paid for by Boebert’s campaign. Because the complaint is sworn, it carries legal weight if any part of it is later proven false to investigators.
Money Questions Sit at the Center of the Claim
The complaint points to about $30,650 in year-end bonuses paid to Navarro and a separate $5,000 campaign payment labeled as fundraising consulting. It also alleges a much bigger payment came later: roughly $200,000 sent to Navarro in 2025, reportedly after she threatened to file an ethics complaint of her own. Reporters say the source of that money remains unconfirmed and parts of the record are redacted.
Boebert and Staffer Push Back Hard
Boebert flatly denied the accusations. “Well, I’m not a lesbian or bisexual, and I have never, ever been in any inappropriate relationship, nor have I ever been sexually involved with any staff,” she said. Her representative told reporters the claims were “utterly false” and called the complaint “a politically motivated stunt designed to manipulate the ethics process, create headlines, smear her, and generate clickbait”.
Navarro Ratzlaff also denied the allegations in strong terms, calling them “entirely false, defamatory, and beyond ridiculous” and insisting there is “absolutely no truth to any part of this claim.” A relative, Jayson Ratslaf, said only that he “assumed this would eventually surface,” a comment that shows awareness of the dispute but does not confirm any of the underlying claims.
An ethics complaint accuses Lauren Boebert of relationships with three staffers and a $200,000 hush payment. Her response: “I’m not a lesbian or bisexual, and I have never been sexually involved with any staff.” One of the named staffers separately called the claims “entirely…
— Tony Lane 🇺🇸 (@TonyLaneNV) September 20, 2026
A Post-#MeToo Rule Sets the Legal Bar
The complaint leans on a specific House rule adopted in 2018, after a wave of harassment scandals in Congress. That rule bars any member from having a sexual relationship with an employee who works under their supervision, with an exception only for spouses. Consent by the employee is not a defense under the rule, which places the responsibility squarely on the lawmaker.
No court records, text messages, hotel receipts, or sworn witness statements from the three named staffers have been made public so far. The House Ethics Committee has not confirmed whether it opened a formal review, and it typically does not comment on complaints early in the process. That leaves the public with dueling sworn claims and no independent documents to settle the matter yet.
Why This Story Resonates Beyond One Lawmaker
Voters on the left and right have grown weary of watching elected officials face accusations that drag on for months with little public accountability either way. Whether the claims against Boebert prove true or false, the case highlights how opaque the ethics process remains and how hard it is for ordinary citizens to get straight answers from the people they elected to represent them.
Sources:
mediaite.com, muckrakers.today, dailywire.com, dailykos.com, congress.gov
