After the White House Correspondents’ Dinner several years ago, a congressman asked a young female staffer from another office to have a threesome. A few months later, he pulled the staffer onto his lap and tried to kiss her.
In 2023, a male chief of staff messaged a former congressional intern looking for a job and propositioned her sexually, writing that he would “own” her and offering to Venmo her money if she complied.
A member of Congress texted a senior leadership staffer in 2017 asking the color of her underwear while she was in his sight line.
The three women who shared these experiences of sexual harassment with CNN chose not to come forward to the House Ethics Committee or the myriad other offices that handle misconduct on Capitol Hill, concerned that they would not be believed and their careers could be damaged.
CNN spoke with more than a dozen current and former female staffers who say they’ve faced harassment from House members or senior congressional staff, nearly all of whom chose not to report the incidents and still fear publicly naming their harassers. Their stories — told under the condition of anonymity over concerns of retribution and corroborated by CNN to the extent possible through interviews, text messages, photo evidence and settlement documents — reveal how women working on Capitol Hill often face structural and cultural shortcomings in Congress that disincentivize staffers from reporting misconduct.
