U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales, R-San Antonio, admitted Wednesday to having an affair with a staffer who later died by suicide, after initially denying the allegation.
Speaking on conservative talk show host Joe Pags’ show the day after he was forced into a runoff in his primary, Gonzales called the affair a “mistake” and a “lapse in judgment.”
“I take full responsibility for those actions,” Gonzales said. “Since then, I have reconciled with my wife, Angel. I’ve asked God to forgive me, which he has. And my faith is as strong as ever.”
Gonzales is now subject to an investigation from the House Ethics Committee, announced Wednesday, to look into whether he “engaged in sexual misconduct towards an individual employed in his congressional office” and “discriminated unfairly by dispensing special favors or privileges.”
The third-term representative said he looks forward to the committee’s probe.
“I appreciate the opportunity to provide all the facts and all the details that lead to exactly what occurred in the entire situation,” he said.
Gonzales’ admittal comes after he was forced into a primary runoff against Brandon Herrera, a gun rights activist and YouTuber who has criticized Gonzales on both policy and personal fronts. Herrera finished first in the March 3 primary, but neither candidate crossed the 50% vote threshold needed to avoid a runoff.
Regina Santos-Aviles, a former Gonzales staffer who worked in his Uvalde office, died in 2025 after setting herself on fire. Gonzales denied rumors of an affair between the two when asked about them at the Texas Tribune Festival in November, saying they were “completely untruthful”.
The San Antonio Express-News reported on the eve of early voting last month that Santos-Aviles had told a fellow ex-staffer of the affair, publishing a screenshot of a text sent by Santos-Aviles to the ex-staffer in which she said she had an “affair with our boss.”
Further texts later came to light — shared by Santos-Aviles’ widower — that showed Gonzales, who is married with six children, asking his staffer to send a “sexy pic” and making other explicit comments, despite her refusal and assertion that Gonzales’ messages were “going too far.”
The congressman declined to answer when asked if the texts were real, saying only that he would let the investigation play out.
Gonzales firmly denied allegations that Santos-Aviles received a pay raise and bonus in 2024 as a result of their relationship. He said the pay bump happened in February of that year, “before all these alleged incidents occurred,” adding that it was part of his regular practice of awarding staffwide pay raises and spot bonuses.
“At no time was she ever reprimanded or rewarded in any form or fashion other than what was already regularly happening within the entire staff,” he said.
Gonzales had declined to answer questions about the alleged affair until Wednesday, in the meantime blaming Herrera, his primary opponent, for politicizing the issue and accusing Adrian Aviles, his ex-staffer’s widow, of trying to blackmail him. And he maintained that he would not resign his office.
Even as Gonzales took responsibility for the affair, he said the timing of the revelation was part of a campaign to both defeat and extort him.
The congressman said that within hours of Santos-Aviles’ death, her estranged husband reached out to his office to ask about his wife’s death benefits and gaining access to her retirement fund. A few months later, Gonzales said, a criminal defense attorney for the husband reached out and asked the congressman for $300,000 “or else.”
“To be frank, this has been, from day one, this has been about power and money,” Gonzales said when asked about the dynamics of having an affair with a subordinate. “While others saw this kind of unfold [during] the opening of early voting — and you’ve seen that — they’ve been attacking me for months on this. But yes, it is important that we have the conversation on workplace environment and making sure that certain things do not take place.”
Bobby Barrera, a lawyer representing Santos-Aviles’ widow, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The congressman said that Santos-Aviles had been “thriving” at work and that her death was a shock. He added that he had “absolutely nothing” to do with her death. He said he last spoke to Santos-Aviles in June 2024, more than a year before she killed herself last September. Santos-Aviles was an employee of Gonzales’ office until the time of her death.
Gonzales also quoted the police report from Santos-Aviles’ death, in which an officer stated that Santos-Aviles told police who arrived at the scene after she set herself on fire that her husband was gay and having an affair with her best friend.
“I wonder if that had something to do with her tragic passing,” Gonzales said.
The affair was reported during the early voting period leading up to Tuesday’s primary, upending what was already expected to be a tight rematch between the San Antonio congressman and Herrera, who came within a few hundred votes of ousting him in 2024. Many of Gonzales’ colleagues, including House GOP leadership, have said his political fate is up to the voters in his district, which spans from El Paso County to San Antonio and runs along much of the southwestern border in West Texas.
Gonzales, who is endorsed by both President Donald Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson, said he had not spoken to Trump in the wake of the allegations but that he has talked with the speaker, who he praised for deftly navigating a narrow GOP majority.
Addressing calls from some of his Republican colleagues to resign, he said the stakes in Congress are too high to quit.
“Those that are asking for me not to do my job are the ones that want to see the Republicans fail here in Congress,” Gonzales said. “There’s no time. We can’t let anything slow us down from executing President Trump’s agenda.”
During the early voting period, Gonzales captured 45% of the vote to Herrera’s 40%, according to unofficial returns. On election day, when the details of the affair had fully come to light, Herrera received 49% to Gonzales’ 36%, an 18-point swing that suggests the San Antonio Republican could face an uphill climb in overcoming the scandal.
But Gonzales maintained that he is the only candidate who can win both a primary and a general election in the district, noting this is his third runoff, and that he won the past two attempts.
“I am going to win in May,” Gonzales said. “There’s no doubt in my mind. The fact that they threw everything at me, every nasty possible thing coordinated against me, and we still had a remarkable turnout just yesterday goes to show that we’re in it to win it.”
