I’ve spent years chasing accountability in Congress. Boebert. Cawthorn before her. This morning it landed in my own backyard.
Chuck Edwards is my congressman. NC-11, Western North Carolina, the mountains I live in. Today the House Ethics Committee, chaired by a Republican, recommended the full House censure him over his conduct toward two young female staffers. One was 19 when she started working for him. Censure means standing in the well of the House while the Speaker reads your shame out loud. Only expulsion is worse.
And here’s the part most outlets will skip: Edwards filed a 14-page counterattack written by Stanley Brand, one of the most experienced ethics lawyers in Washington. It doesn’t deny the gifts or the trips or the letters. It says the Committee broke its own rules to get him.
We’re hosting every page at Muckrakers.Today. Don’t take my word for anything. Read it yourself:
Full report: https://muckrakers.today/docs/edwards-ethics-committee-report.pdf
The exhibits: https://muckrakers.today/docs/edwards-ethics-appendix-a.pdf
His lawyers’ response: https://muckrakers.today/docs/edwards-ethics-appendix-b.pdf
Press release: https://muckrakers.today/docs/edwards-ethics-press-release.pdf
THE STUFF YOU WON’T BELIEVE
Sixteen witnesses. Nearly 1,500 pages. I’m quoting the documents, not speculating.
Over $1,000 in jewelry. Designer purses. Guns, plural. A paid New York trip with Hamilton tickets after one staffer’s breakup. Comments about their weight. Dinners he told staff to keep off his official calendar. Texts after midnight.
He skipped House votes, actual votes he was sent to Washington to cast, to decorate a staffer’s Christmas tree.
He hired a singer for a staffer’s birthday to perform an Ed Sheeran love song. “Darling, we could fall in love ‘neath the hills of Aberfeldy.” She told a friend she was “scared lowkey.” Her words, in the record.
One day a staffer looked sad, so he had about 30 tubs of ice cream delivered to her house. When she said that seemed like a bit much, he wrote back: “My heart was breaking seeing you like that.”
And my personal favorite. A staffer texted him thanks after a casino night. He printed the text out. On paper. Drew a heart next to it. Then wrote, in his own hand, “Perhaps my proudest personal moment!” The photo is in the exhibits.
November 2025, he flew a former staffer to Vegas. Bellagio, Sphere show, flights, all on him. When shutdown votes yanked him back to DC, she offered to change his flight herself so his scheduler wouldn’t “ask why you’re in Vegas.”
THE DELETED TEXTS
When the Committee asked for his messages, more than 400 texts with one staffer were missing, plus a nine-month hole covering at least 400 more. And the gaps weren’t random. His replies vanished in a pattern that made the young women look like the ones doing the chasing.
The problem with deleting texts is that the other person still has them. Investigators got the receipts anyway. Among the recovered messages: “I’m burning with jealousy because I wanted to be the person to introduce you to it.” A handwritten letter signed “With my lifetime of appreciation and devotion, Chuck.”
The Committee wrote that deleting those particular messages “indicates he was aware that their content was cause for concern.”
NOW, HIS SIDE. AND YOU SHOULD ACTUALLY READ IT.
I’m an accountability journalist, not a prosecutor, so here’s what Appendix B argues, straight up.
First, the Committee found no violation of the actual sexual misconduct rules. No sexual activity, no proposition, no quid pro quo, no federal harassment violation. The censure rests entirely on the catch-all rules about behaving “creditably” and honoring the “spirit” of the House.
Second, nobody ever filed a complaint. The investigation started from a Committee press statement and media reports. His lawyers say a censure recommendation requires an Investigative Subcommittee, formal charges, and a hearing where every count gets proved by clear and convincing evidence. None of that happened. Their word for it: “ultra vires.” Beyond the Committee’s power.
Third, they produced a voicemail Staffer 2 left Edwards in October 2025, weeks before Vegas: “I’m still so excited for Vegas. It’s going to be so much fun.” His lawyers say the Committee had that recording and ignored it.
They also point out House gift rules exempt gifts based on personal friendship, that Edwards gave gifts to plenty of other staffers including a handgun to a male staffer, and that the affair rumors trace back to a staffer he fired. He closes with “sincere regret” if anyone felt uncomfortable. While admitting nothing.
Is some of that lawyer smoke? Sure. The procedural argument is real, though, and if the House censures him on this record, every member of both parties should understand the precedent being set.
But here’s what sticks with me. When investigators asked Edwards directly whether he should have acted differently toward the young women who worked for him, he had a three-word answer.
“I’m going to say no.”
Two women walked away from careers in Congress. He’d change nothing. The Committee called it “a lack of self-awareness and accountability.” I call it exactly what Western North Carolina doesn’t need in Washington.
And while we’re on the subject of ethics: American Muckrakers has two ethics complaints pending against Lauren Boebert right now. The Edwards report proves the process can work when the evidence is there. We intend to make sure it works twice more. She’s also got court dates in Garfield County on August 13 and Weld County on September 4, and we’ll be watching those too.
The House votes on censure next. Then in November, NC-11 votes. I’ll be covering both here and at Muckrakers.Today. Subscribe, share this, and send it to somebody in the 11th District.
Sunlight. Always sunlight.
Big D
NOTE: All quotations come from the House Committee on Ethics report, Appendix B, and exhibits linked above. Representative Edwards has denied wrongdoing, and he is entitled to a presumption of innocence with respect to any matter not adjudicated. OK, Chuck.
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.
Chuck doesn't get this District 11 Consituate's vote. NO way, Edwards.