A former top aide to a Pennsylvania GOP congressman who used taxpayer money to settle a sexual harassment complaint resigned as another lawmaker’s chief of staff after he was targeted by a sexual misconduct probe.
Brian Schubert stepped down Wednesday as chief of staff for Rep. Neal Dunn (R-Fla.) after the House Ethics Committee announced a misconduct investigation of him and his former boss, Rep. Patrick Meehan (R-Pa.). Meehan said in January he wouldn’t seek re-election after admitting telling a decades-younger aide he was her “soul mate.”
It appears the saga gets even more complicated, however. Schubert and Meehan both may be under investigation for harassment of the same woman, Politico reported.
“The Investigative Subcommittee shall have jurisdiction to determine whether Representative Patrick Meehan and/or his former Chief of Staff, Mr. Brian Schubert, who is currently employed by another House office, engaged in conduct that constitutes sexual harassment, retaliation, or misuse of official resources, in violation of House Rules, law, regulations, or other standards of conduct,” the House Ethics Committee said Tuesday in a statement.
The panel announced in January that it would investigate Meehan, then an Ethics Committee member, and would remove him from the committee. He announced a few days later that he would retire.
Politico, citing sources familiar with the situation, reported that Meehan fired Schubert in 2016 after Schubert made romantic advances to a woman in Meehan’s office. Meehan then expressed his own romantic interests in the same woman, the outlet reported.
Meehan admitted writing the staffer a letter professing himself her “soul mate” after he learned she was in a serious relationship. He turned hostile when she didn’t reciprocate, the woman said in a complaint last year.
The suburban Philadelphia congressman denied sexually harassing the woman, and blamed the stress of the GOP’s failed Obamacare repeal for some of the behavior she perceived as hostile. He used taxpayer dollars to settle her complaint.
Dunn’s office confirmed Schubert’s resignation, but wouldn’t elaborate.