Congress could be near an unprecedented and likely explosive disclosure of information contained in a massive pile of documents concerning sexual misconduct allegations lodged against members of the House of Representatives, as well as the taxpayer-funded settlement payments made on their behalf.

That’s thanks to a subpoena issued March 27 by House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) to the House Office of Congressional Workplace Rights (OCWR). The OCWR manages a taxpayer-funded settlement account that has issued millions of dollars to dozens of victims of sexual misconduct and other forms of improper workplace activities.

What documents will be disclosed and to what extent they will be redacted prior to release to exclude selected information from public access remains to be seen. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.), a member of the oversight panel, claimed in an April 15 tweet that the “House Oversight subpoenaed the records of the congressional sexual harassment slush fund and we will be releasing them. Maybe we’ll see more resignations, you never know.” A Luna spokesman did not respond to The Washington Stand’s request for comment.

Luna’s comment came in the wake of the resignation from the House of now-former Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) following public allegations by at least five women, including former staffers, of sexual misconduct, including rape. The day before leaving Congress, Swalwell ended his campaign for Governor of California, a race in which he appeared to be in a leading position.

A knowledgeable congressional source told TWS the OCWR is currently compiling documents to be provided in response to the subpoena. What those documents will include is not presently known, and before any decisions can be made about public release, potentially identifying information about victims must be redacted in a process that could be lengthy.

Punctuating the oversight committee’s subpoena process is the April 20 release by the House Ethics Committee of a comprehensive list of every House member it has investigated regarding sexual misconduct charges, beginning with the first such probe in 1976 of then-Rep. Wayne Hays (D-Ohio), then Chairman of the House Administration Committee. Hays resigned his congressional seat that year in the wake of a two-year sexual relationship with a female aide, Elizabeth Hays, who famously told The Washington Post, “I can’t type. I can’t file. I can’t even answer the phone.”

The ethics panel investigates sexual, financial, and other misconduct allegations against House members and typically issues public reports on the results of its probes. However, the ethics panel has no authority to order the OCWR to make public information about the settlement fund.

The settlement fund, as well as the OCWR, was created by the Congressional Accountability Act of 1995, but both the fund and the office were specifically exempted from public access via the federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Congress exempted itself from all coverage by the FOIA when the law was approved in 1966.

The OCWR, according to Luna, has disclosed 268 cases involving allegations of harassment in House offices for a variety of causes, including financial, religious, and disability-related activities. But no information regarding the amounts or other details have been made public regarding payments made as part of settlements of sexual misconduct allegations by House Members.

Then-Rep. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) introduced his “Congressional Accountability and Hush Fund Elimination Act of 2017” that would have abolished the settlement payments, end Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs), and made other reforms intended to make the inner workings of Congress regarding daily conduct and administration much more transparent. But the DeSantis proposal went nowhere in the House.

His bill was needed, according to DeSantis, because “Members of Congress and staff cannot live under special rules. The current system incentivizes misconduct and makes it difficult for victims. By exposing these secret settlements and by discontinuing using tax dollars to pay for member misconduct, this bill will reduce the incentive for bad behavior and bring more accountability to Congress.”

Opponents of public disclosure of information regarding sexual misconduct settlements contend that release would discourage victims of sexual harassment in the congressional workplace from coming forward with their information, for fear of being publicly identified and thereby subjected to threats of physical and other retaliation. Defense attorney Les Alderman wrote in 2017 that the [DeSantis] bill “punishes victims of harassment who would come forward in the future and who have come forward in the past and would make it less likely that victims would come forward to make claims in the future.”

Proponents of greater congressional transparency in the sexual misconduct arena were disheartened last month when Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) introduced a privileged motion requiring disclosure of the names of congressmen involved in such settlements and the amounts paid. The March 4 Mace motion was defeated on a bipartisan 357 to 65 vote.

Following the vote, an outraged Mace declared that “both parties colluded today to protect predators. They voted to keep sexual harassment records buried, and they did it together. Every Member who voted against this resolution voted to protect the cover-up instead of the victims. This is the establishment in action, always protecting itself, never the victims. Ask yourself why. Remember their names when they ask for your vote. We don’t want to hear a single Member who voted this resolution down utter the name of a single Epstein victim. You don’t get to bury sexual harassment records in Congress and then pretend you care about victims. Pick a side. The victims deserved better. The American people deserved better. Every Member who voted to keep these records buried voted to protect power over people. We won’t let it go and neither should you.”

John Hart, CEO of Open the Books (OTB), the Florida-based nonprofit government spending transparency watchdog, told TWS that “[OCWR] issues annual reports on workplace claims, but over the past several years has stopped disclosing total payouts. While reports include details like which piece of U.S. code was invoked and which protected classes may have been affected, there’s no way to understand how many claims were sexual harassment and which of them were paid out. This closed-door process has only become more vague and secretive over time. Worse, the process in the House involves committee approval, opening sensitive disputes to political gamesmanship.”

Hart is a veteran former congressional aide who worked for former Senator Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) and was key to marshalling support within and without Congress for passage of the Federal Financial Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006 that mandated creation of USASpending.gov, the website that provides public access to most federal spending. By relying on the FOIA and related litigation, the OTB has compiled the most comprehensive publicly accessible database ever of spending by the American government at all levels.

In a related development, Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick (D-Fla.) resigned her seat in Congress Tuesday after she was found guilty of 25 allegations related to theft of Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) funds and the ethics panel began considering whether to recommend her expulsion from the House of Representatives. Her resignation was the third this month from the House, including Swalwell and Rep. Tony Gonzalez (R-Texas), who resigned amid revelations that a former staffer with whom he was sexually involved later committed suicide.

The ethics panel also has an ongoing investigation of allegations of sexual misconduct and/or dating violence against Rep. Tory Mills (R-Fla.). Odds are great that situations like that of Mills will not be the last one to reach headlines in the near future, according to Luna.

In an article for The Spectator, Luna wrote, “Ask almost any staffer on Capitol Hill, and they can tell you which offices to avoid, which members have a reputation and which situations are quietly tolerated because confronting them would be politically inconvenient. Rumors are not just whispered behind closed doors; they are broadcast to virtually anyone dialed in to the right frequency. Leadership hears them. Colleagues hear them. The press often hears them too. And still nothing happens.”