House Speaker Paul Ryan called on Rep. John Conyers to resign over sexual misconduct allegations.
“Yes, I think he should resign,” Ryan, R-Wis., said. “I think he should resign immediately.”
Ryan called for Conyers to quit Congress moments after Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. made the same request.
Conyers, 88, a Michigan Democrat, took office in 1965. Women employees accused him of unwanted sexual advances, one of which resulted in a settlement paid from his office budget.
Conyers, who is in the hospital in Detroit for what a spokesman called “stress-related illness,” has been accused by multiple women of inappropriately touching them and soliciting them for sex during the last 20 years.
Marion Brown, who worked as Conyers’ deputy chief of staff from 2003-2014, spoke on the “Today” show Thursday morning in her first public remarks about her time in Conyers’ office. Brown’s case was the one detailed by Buzzfeed in a report earlier this month, but her identity was not revealed. The terms of Brown’s settlement kept her from speaking out originally, but on Thursday, she said Conyers continually propositioned her for sex.
“It was sexual harassment, violating my body, propositioning me, inviting me [to a] hotel with the guise of discussing business and then propositioning me for sex,” she said. “He’s just violated my body, he has touched me in different ways and it was very uncomfortable and very unprofessional”
Brown said she reported it to her boss, but nothing ever came of her report.
“There was a time I reported to who was the chief of staff at that time in Detroit and he was my boss,” she said.
“He said he would talk to the congressman about it. He didn’t challenge me in disbelief, he said he would talk to the congressman about his behavior and then I didn’t see any change because it continued after that.”
Multiple other women gave statements in Brown’s case that Conyers was a repeat offender when it came to harassment and used taxpayer resources to fly women in with whom he was having affairs.
Reporters also asked Ryan if he wants Rep. Joe Barton to resign.
Barton, a Republican from Texas with more than three decades in the House, is alleged to have sent sexual messages to women on Facebook while he was married and sent a lewd photo to a woman with whom he was romantically involved.
“I have spoken with him,” Ryan said of Barton. “And I’ll continue speaking to him.”
