Lauren Boebert is forcefully denying a bombshell ethics complaint accusing her of sexual relationships with three congressional staffers — including two women — and an alleged $200,000 payment meant to keep one former aide quiet.
Her response could hardly be more direct.
“I’m not a lesbian or bisexual,” the 39-year-old Colorado Republican said.
She also insisted she has “never, ever” had an inappropriate or sexual relationship with anyone on her congressional staff.
The allegations surfaced in a sworn complaint filed Sept. 17 with the House Committee on Ethics by David B. Wheeler, founder of the political activist group American Muckrakers.
The complaint accuses Boebert of relationships with three current or former aides she supervised.
None of those allegations has been substantiated by the House Ethics Committee, and the committee has not publicly announced that it has opened a formal investigation.
Boebert’s office dismissed the complaint as politically motivated.
A spokesperson called the allegations “utterly false” and said there was “no truth to them whatsoever.”
The spokesperson accused Wheeler of attempting to manipulate the ethics process to generate publicity and damaging headlines.
The most detailed allegations involve Clarice Navarro Ratzlaff, who served as Boebert’s district director from 2021 until early 2025.
The complaint claims Boebert and Navarro maintained a sexual relationship over several years.
It further alleges encounters occurred in locations including Boebert’s district office, hotels and a vehicle for which mileage reimbursements were claimed.
Navarro categorically denies all of it.
“These allegations regarding me are entirely false, defamatory, and beyond ridiculous,” she told the Colorado Times Recorder.
“There is absolutely no truth to any part of this claim.”
The complaint goes further.
Wheeler alleges that Boebert arranged a $200,000 payment to Navarro in March 2025 after Navarro supposedly threatened to file her own ethics complaint.
No independent evidence proving such a payment was made for that purpose has been publicly established.
Wheeler says he possesses supporting material including alleged bank records, text messages, recorded conversations, court documents and information from unnamed sources.
Those materials have not all been independently verified in public reporting.
That distinction is crucial.
A sworn complaint means its author is formally asserting that the allegations are true.
It does not mean the allegations themselves have been proven.
The House ethics rules underlying the complaint are real and unusually strict.
House Rule 23 explicitly prohibits members from having sexual relationships with House employees who work under their supervision, except when the two people are married.
So if such relationships were proven, they could create a serious ethics issue regardless of whether they were consensual.
But at this stage, the dispute is over whether they occurred at all.
Boebert says they did not.
Navarro says they did not.
And the allegations remain unproven.
The complaint also names Boebert’s former chief of staff Jeffrey Small and current district chief of staff Raven Finegan as people with whom Wheeler alleges she had inappropriate relationships.
Again, those claims have not been independently substantiated.
The sensational nature of the allegations has helped them spread rapidly online.
But Wheeler’s own history with Boebert complicates the story.
In 2022, American Muckrakers published allegations that Boebert had previously worked as a paid escort.
One of the images used in connection with those accusations depicted a different woman.
Wheeler later acknowledged mistakes in the research and described some of the work as “sloppy,” although he continued to defend other aspects of his allegations.
That history is now central to Boebert’s defense.
Her team argues that the latest complaint comes from a longtime political adversary with a record of making inaccurate accusations about her.
Wheeler, however, maintains that this complaint is supported by evidence and has challenged Boebert’s denials.
For now, neither side has received an official verdict.
The House Ethics Committee has authority to investigate alleged violations of congressional conduct rules and can recommend penalties if wrongdoing is established. Those sanctions can range from a reprimand or fine to more serious disciplinary action.
But filing a complaint is only the beginning of that process.
It does not establish guilt.
The controversy arrives at an especially sensitive moment for Boebert.
She has built much of her political identity around conservative social issues and what she describes as support for “family values.”
She is also a high-profile Trump ally and has repeatedly attracted national attention for controversies extending far beyond her Colorado district.
Her personal life has also been heavily scrutinized.
Boebert divorced her husband, Jayson Boebert, in 2023 after nearly two decades of marriage.
Jayson has also reportedly rejected Wheeler’s newest allegations, calling them fabricated.
Boebert herself appears determined to address the most sensational element directly rather than leave room for speculation.
Her denial was unusually specific.
She rejected both the claim that she had relationships with staffers and the suggestion that she is lesbian or bisexual.
But her sexual orientation is not actually the central ethical question.
The relevant issue under House rules would be whether a member of Congress had a sexual relationship with an employee under that member’s supervision.
The same rule would apply regardless of whether the employee was male or female.
That makes the emerging battle less about sexuality than evidence.
Wheeler claims records and witnesses will back his complaint.
Boebert says the entire story is a politically motivated fabrication.
One of the key former employees named in it agrees with Boebert and has publicly called the allegations defamatory.
Until evidence is independently verified or the House Ethics Committee takes formal action, that is where the matter stands.
An explosive accusation.
An equally emphatic denial.
And a potentially serious congressional ethics dispute that has not yet been proven.
