Lauren Boebert, the firebrand Republican subject of a House ethics complaint that she had sex with three staff members, and paid one to keep quiet, has said the allegations are untrue – and part of a “politically motivated” campaign against her.
Boebert’s denials came through a formal statement from her office, which said “the congresswoman rejects the claims as utterly false”. She also published a verbose video rant on social media in which she accused the person who filed the document as a “sloppy, desperate, obsessive hack” – and journalists who reported the story as falling victim to a “scam”.
According to the complaint, filed on ۱۷ September by David Wheeler, an independent journalist, activist, and founder of the American Muckrakers political action committee, Boebert, who represents Colorado’s fourth congressional district, committed at least seven violations of House ethics rules.
The Guardian has reviewed the complaint but not independently substantiated the allegations.
Wheeler said his group had direct knowledge of the relationships “through text messages, bank records, court documents, and recorded conversations”.
Among the most prominent allegations are that Boebert conducted a four-year “romantic and sexual relationship” with a senior female staffer, named as Clarice Navarro Ratzlaff, then paid her $۲۰۰,۰۰۰ when Ratzlaff broke off the affair and threatened to file an ethics complaint of her own.
Additionally, Wheeler alleges, Boebert had a sexual relationships around the same time with Raven Finegan, a congressional employee and the congresswoman’s district chief of staff, and Jeffrey Small, who was her chief of staff from ۲۰۲۱ to ۲۰۲۵.
The complaint includes detailed financial records of Boebert’s congressional spending, and payments to staff that included more than $۴۵۰,۰۰۰ to Finegan to June ۲۰۲۶, and almost $۷۸۰,۰۰۰ to Small. Ratzlaff received more than $۴۶۱,۰۰۰.
The code of official conduct prohibits House members from engaging in sexual relationships with employees under their supervision, or the committees on which they serve, unless a couple is married. Consent, the rules state, is not a defense.
The allegations came after Boebert has frequently promoted her own Christian values and has previously been publicly critical of same-sex relationships. In June, she posted on X – without evidence – that Major League Baseball was unduly “forcing” players to promote a LBGTQ+ agenda.
Attached to the complaint are numerous photographs of Boebert and Finegan together, and accounts of a number of social trips the congresswoman made to Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida with family and friends.
Ratzlaff, a Republican former state representative who resigned in ۲۰۱۷ to take a minor role in Trump’s first administration, divorced her husband, Jace, amid the fallout from her relationship with Boebert, the complaint alleges.
It adds that Boebert fired Ratzlaff in September ۲۰۲۴ but allowed her to stay on her payroll until January ۲۰۲۵ as a “ghost employee” who performed no work.
“These allegations regarding me are entirely false, defamatory, and beyond ridiculous,” Ratzlaff told the Colorado Reporter in a text message. “There is absolutely no truth to any part of this claim.”
According to American Muckrakers, Jace Ratzlaff told Wheeler: “I assumed this would eventually surface. I’ll have no further comment on this topic.”
A spokesperson for Boebert, in a statement from her office on Sunday, questioned the legitimacy of the complaint, noting that a member of the House needed to certify it had been filed in good faith, and so far nobody had.
“Swearing to it does not make it a complaint,” the spokesperson said. “This was a political smear packaged as an ethics filing and published before anyone checked whether it even qualifies under the [ethics] committee’s rules.”
Boebert also told news outlet Sources Say News: “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.”
The ethics complaint against Boebert, who filed for divorce from her husband, Jayson Boebert, in May ۲۰۲۳ citing irreconcilable differences, follows similar previous claims.
In September ۲۰۲۳, she apologized and said she “fell short of my values” after closed circuit video footage from a Denver theater showed Boebert and a male companion groping each other.
Boebert, who was escorted from the building by security, initially denied that she was also vaping against theater rules – but later conceded she had been when further video footage emerged. Boebert said she “genuinely did not recall vaping that evening” and blamed her conduct on a “public and difficult divorce”.
In another episode in January ۲۰۲۴, Boebert denied attacking her ex-husband after police were called to a disturbance involving the pair at a restaurant in Silt, Colorado.
Boebert in June ended an interview with a Fox News Digital reporter who brought up allegations that she had a relationship with fellow Republican US House member Thomas Massie.
In the interview, Boebert had been discussing Republican representatives who had lost their primaries when she mentioned Massie, to which the reporter said: “One of his exes was making headlines saying that you guys – ”
Boebert interjected: “Fuck you, first of all. If you’re gonna bring me into this, like, this sexist stuff is out of control. There’s your clickbait that you were looking for. I don’t wanna talk about anybody’s exes and their crazy shit that they do.”
She then ended the interview by walking away.
In August, Lauren and Jayson Boebert’s ۲۱-year-old son, Tyler appeared in court in Glenwood Springs, Colorado, charged with three counts of sexual exploitation of a child and two counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor over sexually explicit pictures he allegedly posted on social media in ۲۰۲۴.
