Rep. Tony Gonzales, R-Texas, sent sexual text messages to a former aide with whom he allegedly had an affair before her death by suicide last year, messages obtained by NBC News show.
In a series of late-night messages from May 9, 2024, Gonzales asked his then-staffer to “send me a sexy pic.” He went on to ask her “favorite position” and then mentioned multiple sexual acts.
The aide, Regina Santos-Aviles, eventually replied by telling the congressman, “this is too far, Tony.”
“Please tell me you didn’t just hire me because I was hot,” Santos-Aviles wrote.
“No way,” Gonzales replied.
NBC News obtained the text messages and confirmed their authenticity with Bobby Barrera, the lawyer for Santos-Aviles’ widower, Adrian Aviles. Barrera previously said he was working with his client to release text messages to confirm Aviles' accusation that his late wife had been in a romantic relationship with Gonzales.
The text messages, which only include messages exchanged during part of one day, do not address whether there was a physical relationship between the two. The San Antonio Express-News and 24Sight News first published the text messages.
Gonzales’ office did not return a request for comment Monday.
NBC News reported last week that the Office of Congressional Conduct has concluded an investigation into the alleged affair, according to two sources familiar with the investigation. According to House rules, it is not allowed to transmit its report to the House Ethics Committee so close to Texas’ March 3 primaries, in which Gonzales faces a serious challenge. Meanwhile, several of Gonzales' Republican colleagues in the House called Monday for him to resign or end his campaign.
In the weeks after Santos-Aviles’ death in 2025, Gonzales denied the allegation that they had an affair. But it resurfaced last week when Santos-Aviles’ widower publicly accused the congressman of having an affair with his then-wife, and Gonzales has not directly addressed the substance of the allegation since then.
Instead, in a statement, he framed the allegation as a politically motivated primary season attack on the part of Brandon Herrera, his most prominent challenger, and he accused the widower and his lawyer of trying to blackmail him.
“It’s shameful that Brandon Herrera is using a disgruntled former staffer to smear her memory and score political points, conveniently pushing this out the very day early voting started,” Gonzales said in a statement to NBC News last week. “I am not going to engage in these personal smears and instead will remain focused on helping President Trump secure the border and improve the lives of all Texans.”
Gonzales has accused both Barrera and Aviles of blackmailing him, publishing an email from the lawyer discussing a $300,000 nondisclosure agreement. He posted on the social media platform X over the weekend that he’s never faced a “single formal complaint” in his political career, lamenting how “coordinated political attacks” are hitting him now right before his election.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., told NBC News in a brief interview that he “endorsed Tony before all those allegations came out,” calling them “very serious.”
“I’ve spoken with him and told him he’s got to address that in the appropriate way with his constituents, and all of that,” he added.
“It’s too early for anybody to prejudge any of that, but we’ll see how it develops,” Johnson said.
While many other Republicans have not commented on Gonzales, Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado and Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina posted on social media that he should “resign,” while Rep. Brandon Gill of Texas called on Gonzales to “drop out of the race.” Republican Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida wrote on X that all of her colleagues “should be condemning a sitting Member of Congress asking for explicit photos of their staff,” calling the text messages “disgusting.”
Gonzales is running in a competitive Republican primary on March 3 against candidates that include Herrera, a pro-gun activist. If no candidate wins a majority of the votes, the top two candidates will advance to a head-to-head primary runoff in May. That’s what happened in 2024, when Herrera fell just a few hundred votes short of defeating Gonzales in a runoff.
Herrera has called on Gonzales to resign, arguing that he broke the public trust — and that Gonzales could jeopardize Republican attempts to hold onto the congressional district if he doesn’t step aside. President Donald Trump carried the 23rd District in West Texas by almost 15 percentage points in 2024.
A recent ad from Herrera’s campaign warns the alleged affair “puts Republicans at risk of losing this seat and handing control of Congress to the Democrats.”
“That’s a risk we can’t afford. In the March 3rd Republican primary, vote for the pro-Trump Republican who can keep this seat,” the ad’s narrator says.
