Santos denies sexual harassment accusation from ex-prospective staffer

Republican Rep. George Santos on Monday denied groping a former prospective staffer in his congressional office, calling the sexual harassment allegation “comical.”

Santos, the embattled freshman lawmaker from Latest York who’s facing a litany of other scandals and investigations, said he “in fact” denies the most recent claim “100%,” CNN reported.

That denial got here three days after Santos’ accuser, Derek Myers, said he had filed a report asking the U.S. Capitol Police and the House Committee on Ethics to analyze the alleged sexual harassment incident.

Myers also asked the ethics panel to probe Santos’ office for allegedly assigning him staff duties and promising him future employment while he was an unpaid volunteer, in keeping with a letter Myers posted on Twitter.

Neither NBC News nor CNBC have been in a position to independently corroborate the letter’s allegations.

A spokeswoman for Santos’ office referred CNBC to his lawyer, who declined to comment. The U.S. Capitol Police didn’t immediately reply to CNBC’s request for comment on Myers’ alleged report.

Myers’ involvement with Santos first got here to light last week, when Talking Points Memo published audio that Myers had surreptitiously recorded contained in the congressman’s office. That audio, which described Myers as a neighborhood news reporter, noted that he had been charged last 12 months with wiretapping after his outlet published leaked audio of courtroom testimony. The nonprofit Committee to Protect Journalists has called for those charges to be dropped.

In his letter posted Friday, Myers said that Santos sexually harassed him on Jan. 25 while the 2 men were alone within the congressman’s personal office going over constituent mail. Santos had asked Myers earlier within the day if he had a profile on the LGBTQ dating app Grindr, sharing that “he, himself had a profile,” Myers’ letter said.

Myers wrote that Santos called him “buddy” and “insisted” that Myers sit next to him on a small sofa before “placing his hand on my left leg, near my knee and saying, ‘Hey buddy, we’ll karaoke tonight. Would you wish to go?'”

Myers declined, and Santos then “proceeded to take his hand and move it down my leg into my inner-thigh and proceeded to the touch my groin,” in keeping with the letter. “He then proceeded to take a look at me and say, ‘My husband is out of town tonight if you desire to come over,'” and shared his address with Myers, the letter alleged.

Myers said he pushed Santos’ hand away and returned to discussing constituent mail, then soon thereafter left the office soon. Five days later, Myers wrote, he was beckoned to Santos’ office and “asked about my background as a journalist” and matters that “had already been disclosed” in prior discussions with hiring managers.

On Feb. 1, Myers’ job offer was rescinded, the letter alleged. He had been offered a staff position just over per week earlier on Jan. 23, and had begun performing various duties within the office the subsequent day, but he was told that his title can be “volunteer” until his onboarding paperwork had been processed, in keeping with the letter.

“Since this, I actually have learned that such volunteer work inside a Congressional office without the right procedures being followed is in violation of the House Ethics,” Myers wrote in asking for an investigation of the matter.

The office of the House Committee on Ethics’ Republican majority didn’t immediately reply to CNBC’s request for comment on Myers’ letter. A spokesperson for Rep. Susan Wild, the highest rating Democrat on the panel, told NBC that the office had received the letter. The Office of Congressional Ethics, a nonpartisan entity that Myers had tagged in his Twitter thread, also didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment.