Rep. Katie Hill Resigns Amid Ethics Probe Into Alleged Relationship With Staffer

The Democrat is stepping down from office after reports of inappropriate relationships surfaced.

Rep. Katie Hill said Sunday that she is resigning from Congress amid an ethics investigation into unproven claims that she had a relationship with one of her congressional staff members after being sworn into office.

“It is with a broken heart that today I announce my resignation from Congress,” the California Democrat said in a written statement Sunday evening. “This is the hardest thing I have ever had to do, but I believe it is the best thing for my constituents, my community and our country.”

On Wednesday, the same day the House Ethics probe was announced, Hill, who is going through a divorce, admitted to having an inappropriate relationship with a campaign staffer while she was running for Congress. She denied the allegations about having an affair with a congressional staffer after she took office.

She apologized for the relationship in a letter she sent to her constituents:

“During the final tumultuous years of my abusive marriage, I became involved in a relationship with someone on my campaign,” Hill said in the letter. “I know that even a consensual relationship with a subordinate is inappropriate, but I still allowed it to happen despite my better judgment. For that I apologize.”

Hill’s personal life has been thrust into the spotlight after a conservative blog published intimate photos of Hill and claimed that the lawmaker and her husband had been in a polyamorous relationship prior to their divorce.

“This is what needs to happen so that the good people who supported me will no longer be subjected to the pain inflicted by my abusive husband and the brutality of hateful political operatives who seem to happily provide a platform to a monster who is driving a smear campaign built around cyber exploitation,” she said in the statement announcing her resignation.