Sworn complaint filed with the House Ethics Committee alleges Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) carried on a years-long affair with her female District Director, rewarded her with taxpayer-funded bonuses, disguised a $5,000 campaign payment as “consulting,” and arranged a $200,000 hush money payment after the staffer threatened her.
SPRUCE PINE, NC & WASHINGTON, DC. A sworn ethics complaint filed yesterday with the U.S. House Committee on Ethics alleges that Rep. Lauren Boebert engaged in sexual relationships with three House employees under her direct supervision, in violation of the House rule adopted after the #MeToo reckoning that flatly prohibits Members from sleeping with their own staff.
The complaint, filed by David B. Wheeler of American Muckrakers and supported by exhibits drawn from House payroll records, Federal Election Commission filings, court records, and on-the-record sources, names three current and former senior aides:
Clarice Navarro, Boebert’s District Director from January 2021 to January 2025
Raven Finegan, Boebert’s current District Chief of Staff
Jeffrey Small, Boebert’s Chief of Staff from 2021 to 2025
The centerpiece is the alleged relationship with Ms. Navarro, a former Colorado state representative and Trump USDA appointee who ran Boebert’s district operation for four years.
THE ALLEGATIONS, BY THE NUMBERS
According to the complaint, Boebert’s relationship with Navarro ran from 2021 until her tenure with Boebert ended in January 2025, with encounters during and after office hours, in the district office itself, in a vehicle for which Navarro collected House mileage reimbursements, and in hotel rooms paid for by Boebert’s campaign.
Our sources have direct knowledge of the relationship between Navarro and Boebert through text messages, bank records, court documents, and recorded conversations.
In one bizarre incident, our sources claim that Navarro and Boebert got into a “knock-down, drag-out and physical argument”, at Hooch Aspen, owned by one-time lover of Boebert and participant in the “Beetlejuice Boebert” incident, Quinn Gallagher.
According to our sources, Navarro was upset with Boebert flirting with Gallagher and a fight ensued. Our sources claim there is 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.
According to sources, in early 2023, Navarro husband, Jace Ratzlaff, confronted Navarro and filed for divorce in March 2023.
When reached for comment, Mr. Ratzlaff stated,
“I assumed this would eventually surface, I’ll have no further comment on this topic.”
Boebert filed for divorce in May of 2023, from then husband, Jayson Boebert. In response to our story, Jayson said the following:
In another twist, Navarro found out she had been fired through a staff announcement by Boebert in the DC office. Boebert never told her why she was fired but simply stopped communicating with her but allowed her to stay on U.S. House of Representatives payroll and benefits from September 2024, through January 2025. This is what’s known in politics as “Ghost Payroll” and illegal according to federal law and U.S. House rules as alleged in the complaint.
One sources also claims that Boebert and Navarro had a threesome with former U.S. Representative Matt Gaetz and that Navarro and Boebert separately have been having affairs with men and women for years.
The money trail, assembled from official House Statements of Disbursements and FEC records, shows:
💰 $449,391.63 in total House pay to Navarro over four years
💰 ~$30,650 in year-end bonuses, paid from taxpayer funds in the fourth quarter of every single year of her employment: roughly $6,150 (2021), $11,500 (2022), $8,000 (2023), and $5,000 (2024). The complaint alleges these bonuses were paid on account of the relationship, not for official work.
💰 $5,000 from Boebert’s campaign on July 8, 2022, reported to the FEC as “Fundraising Consulting.” The complaint alleges no consulting was performed and that the payment was made to buy silence, making the FEC report false.
💰 ~$200,000 in or about March 2025. The complaint alleges that after leaving the office, Navarro told Boebert she intended to file an ethics complaint, and that a payment of approximately $200,000 was then made to her to make it go away. The source of the funds is unknown. A person with direct knowledge of the payment’s receipt personally viewed it. The record of the payment will be readily available to investigators.
THE MAR-A-LAGO TRIP
The complaint also documents an October 2022 trip in which Navarro accompanied Boebert to Mar-a-Lago for a campaign fundraising visit with Donald Trump. The Colorado Times Recorder photographed the two together at the resort. Boebert’s own FEC filings show the campaign paying for West Palm Beach meals, catering, and a Courtyard by Marriott hotel bill in the exact same window.
A PATTERN, NOT AN EXCEPTION
The complaint alleges the Navarro relationship was not isolated. It alleges Boebert also engaged in sexual relationships with Raven Finegan, who rose from campaign staff to field representative to District Chief of Staff and remains on the House payroll today, and with Jeff Small, the chief of staff who ran her Washington office for four years and collected $767,892 in taxpayer-funded salary before departing in January 2025 with a $10,000 campaign payment on his way out the door.
THE RULES SHE’S ACCUSED OF BREAKING
The complaint lays out seven counts, including:
⚖️ House Rule XXIII, clause 18(a): the post-2018 rule prohibiting any sexual relationship between a Member and a supervised employee. Consent is not a defense.
⚖️ House Rule XXIII, clauses 1 and 8: discreditable conduct and staff pay not commensurate with official duties.
⚖️ 18 U.S.C. §§ 641, 1001, 1343, 1346: conversion of federal funds, false payroll certification, and honest-services fraud, for the taxpayer-funded bonuses.
⚖️ 52 U.S.C. §§ 30114 and 30104: personal use of campaign funds and false FEC reporting, for the “consulting” payment and campaign-paid hotel rooms.
⚖️ 18 U.S.C. § 1512: witness tampering, for the alleged $200,000 payment made to stop an ethics complaint from being filed.
The complaint asks the Committee to convene an Investigative Subcommittee and to refer evidence of criminal conduct to the Justice Department and the FEC.
📄 READ THE COMPLAINT
The full complaint and exhibits, with source-protecting redactions, are available for download here:
What happens next: The Committee on Ethics does not confirm or deny the existence of reviews. The Office of Congressional Conduct may also independently review the matter. The allegations in the complaint are exactly that, allegations, sworn under penalty of perjury by the complainant (me) and now in the hands of the body with jurisdiction to investigate them.
Requests for comment were sent to Rep. Boebert’s congressional office and campaign, and to the individuals named. The only response we received was Jayson Boebert’s and it’s printed above. Other responses were not made by publication time but will be added here as received.
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About the Author
David B. Wheeler is the president and co-founder of American Muckrakers, the Western North Carolina accountability organization best known for helping end Madison Cawthorn’s congressional career in 2022, the rare instance in modern politics of a sitting incumbent losing his own primary because somebody bothered to do the homework. Since then, American Muckrakers has turned its attention to Lauren Boebert, Ken Paxton, and a growing roster of politicians who confuse public office with a personal ATM. He publishes accountability journalism at Muckrakers.Today.
Wheeler co-hosts the MUCK YOU! podcast with Col. Moe Davis, the retired Air Force colonel and former chief prosecutor at Guantanamo Bay. He is the author of Color the Crooks, Case File #001: Lauren Boebert, the coloring book James Carville endorsed with the words “She earned every damn page. Buy it.” *He is also the founder of VoteROI.com, a political data company built on 86.9 million FEC records that helps donors figure out where their money actually goes, which, as this essay makes clear, is a question more people should be asking.
Before all that, Wheeler spent three decades in politics, elections, and event production in more than 50 countries on all seven continents. Along the way he lowered the Mississippi River, produced the first professional sports event ever held in Moscow, and produced the first marathon ever run on Antarctica. His political education started early: Page for the Iowa House of Representatives, intern in the United States Senate, and National Committeeman for Iowa on the Young Democrats of America national committee. David was the lead advance guy for then Senator Obama in Iowa City, Iowa, in October of 2006, and then again during his presidential announcement in Waterloo, Iowa, in February 2007. And, he has some good stories from both experiences.
An Iowa native and proud Hawkeye, Wheeler is a father of three and lives in the mountains of Western North Carolina, in the district Chuck Edwards is currently failing. He believes sunlight is the best disinfectant, filings don’t lie, and the loudest guy in the room is usually the one with the most to hide.
And, Beetlejuice Boebert claimed she was going to sue him. She never did, so David sued her in Federal Court in Denver and partially won.
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This publication is First Amendment protected speech and commentary on matters of public concern. All individuals referenced are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in a court of law. No portion of this publication may be used for commercial purposes without the written consent of American Muckrakers PAC, Inc. and David B. Wheeler via david@americanmuckrakers.com