Gonzales Concedes To The Inevitable After Admitting To Affair

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It wasn’t a question of Representative Tony Gonzales doing the “right” thing. It was a question of doing the only reasonable thing left after Tuesday’s primary.

If the vote totals on Tuesday had favored him, then Gonzales would have likely continued to brazen out the rest of the election season. But they did not, and the news cycle finally began to overtake him and his campaign.

Our readers will remember this brewing scandal, but for those who are unaware of the tsunami that finally swallowed up the Gonzales campaign, here is a short recap. The representative from Texas’s 23rd congressional district was accused of having an affair with an employee, who later committed suicide. Regina Santos-Aviles, who was a staffer in Gonzales’s office, died last September after self-immolating at her home in Uvalde, Texas. Last month, evidence of the affair was exposed by local media.

The alleged affair was first reported by the San Antonio Express-News, who spoke with an ex-staffer of Gonzales. The former staffer, who asked not to be named out of fear of retaliation, provided the newspaper a text message from Regina Santos-Aviles in which she acknowledged having an “affair with our boss.”

KSAT Investigates has reviewed the text message between the ex-staffer and Santos-Aviles but has not been able to independently verify the messages were sent by her.

Santos-Aviles, 35, was the regional director for Gonzales in his Uvalde office since 2021. She died by suicide after setting herself on fire at her Uvalde home on Sept. 14.

For months, KSAT Investigates reported on the fallout from her death, and asked Gonzales and his spokesperson to respond to allegations of an affair more than 20 times.

Gonzales, 45, is married with six children, according to his Instagram profile. The district he represents — Congressional District 23 — stretches from San Antonio’s West Side to El Paso.

Santos-Aviles’s husband, Adrian Aviles, claimed that the affair played a role in his late wife’s suicide. Gonzales vehemently denied that he played a role in anything, and took to social media to respond to Aviles’s lawyer, who was asking for a settlement.

“The agreement, as the part that he published clearly states, Adrian (Aviles) never had any intent to destroy his political career, had never any intent to take this public,” (attorney Bobby) Barrera said. “But nonetheless, in the pursuit of a valid damage claim on behalf of his deceased wife, we engaged in settlement negotiations to try and resolve a legitimate Congressional Accountability Act claim for retaliatory harassment and sexual harassment by a congressman. And if Tony perceives that as extortion, then that’s his problem.”

According to the House of Representatives’ Code of Official Conduct, a member “may not engage in a sexual relationship with any employee of the House who works under the supervision of the Member.”

Gonzales is not a high-profile member of the House Republican caucus, but this story continued to grow legs for a few reasons. First, for its tawdry nature and shocking details of Santos-Aviles’s death. Second, because Gonzales was running in a competitive primary. And finally, because the Republican majority is razor-thin and who knows who will be in the majority come November.

After the primary election on Tuesday, where Gonzales came in second by nearly a thousand votes and was forced into a runoff election, the House Ethics Committee announced that they were beginning an investigation into Gonzales’s conduct and the then-alleged affair.

At this point, Gonzales decided that the writing was on the wall, so he might as well rip off the Band-Aid and admit to the obvious.

Embattled Republican Rep. Tony Gonzales, who just advanced to a runoff in his Texas district’s primary election, admitted on Wednesday that he had an extramarital affair with a staffer who later fatally set herself on fire.

“I made a mistake, and I had a lapse in judgment,” Gonzales said during an interview on “The Joe Pags Show,” a day after Tuesday’s Republican House primary election.

“And there was a lack of faith,” the congressman continued. “And I take full responsibility for those actions.”

Gonzales indicated that he has “reconciled” with his wife since the May 2024 affair with his late staffer, married mom Regina Santos-Aviles.

“I’ve asked God to forgive me, which he has,” Gonzales said.

God does forgive, but that doesn’t mean your constituents will. Or your colleagues, as House leadership asked him to drop out of the race and leave Congress at the end of his term.

“The Ethics Committee has announced an investigation into Congressman Tony Gonzales’s conduct, and we urge them to act expeditiously,” Johnson and the three other highest-ranking House Republicans said in a statement. “In the meantime, Leadership has asked Congressman Gonzales to withdraw from his race for re-election.”

Gonzales has insisted he will not resign from Congress, as some of his GOP colleages have suggested. Notably, Johnson and the other GOP leaders did not call for Gonzales to resign — which would create a vacancy lasting months as they struggle to manage a narrow Republican majority.

Late last night, Tony Gonzales dropped out of the race with a statement on X.

With Gonzales dropping out, and the 23rd Congressional District being traditionally Republican, it means that popular “GunTuber” personality and Second Amendment advocate Brandon Herrera is, in all likelihood, the next congressman for the 23rd District.

If you’ve never watched any of Brandon’s stuff on his YouTube channel, go check it out. He is both educational and hilarious. I hope he keeps making videos even after (hopefully) being elected to Congress.

Gonzales dropping out doesn’t stop the Ethics investigation, or any potential civil claims or suits by the family of Regina Santos-Aviles. But him leaving the race does take pressure off the House leadership, and good riddance to him.

Featured image: Representative Tony Gonzales, official Congressional portrait, cropped, public domain

The post Gonzales Concedes To The Inevitable After Admitting To Affair appeared first on Victory Girls Blog.



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