A House Republican pressed his colleagues in a letter Tuesday not to censure him over sexual harassment allegations.
“I am asking you to distinguish between conduct that someone … might consider unconventional and conduct that actually establishes sexual harassment,” Rep. Chuck Edwards, North Carolina Republican, pleaded in the letter, first reported by NOTUS.
The House Ethics Committee recommended censure of Mr. Edwards in August, saying it found “substantial reason” to believe he “violated House Rules related to sexual harassment and hostile workplaces.”
The committee’s report stated that Mr. Edwards “engaged in persistent unprofessional and inappropriate conduct towards two young female staffers,” citing repeated gifts, comments on their appearance and invitations to “intimate dinners and vacations.”
The report says the committee found no evidence Mr. Edwards “engaged in sexual activity with or explicitly propositioned” staffers but that “his excessive attention toward the young women had led to rumors and innuendo in the office.”
Now, with the House about to return to session, Mr. Edwards is asking his fellow lawmakers not to formally condemn him when a censure resolution comes to the floor.
Mr. Edwards argued in the letter that his behavior does not amount to sexual harassment.
“An affectionate friendship is not a sexual proposition. A gift is not sexual misconduct. A compliment is not sexual misconduct. Poetry is not sexual misconduct,” he wrote.
He continued, “Yet individual acts that were not themselves prohibited were gathered together, assigned the most damaging possible interpretation, and then used collectively to support a conclusion far more serious than the underlying evidence.”
Mr. Edwards also wrote in the letter that he gave presents to male staffers as well.
“I gave gifts to other members of my staff — male and female — including wine, olive oil, cookware, rum, Kennedy Center tickets and even a handgun to a male staffer,” he wrote.
He described this gift-giving as a “broader pattern of generosity toward people with whom I worked closely, and that was a practice I exercised in my small business.”
Mr. Edwards, a two-term congressman, abandoned his reelection bid in August, two days after the Ethics Committee’s report was released.
A censure resolution is a way for the House to express disapproval of a member’s actions. It requires a simple majority to pass.
The last member to be censured was Rep. Al Green, Texas Democrat, who in March 2025 disrupted President Trump’s address to Congress.
