Republican opponents of Rep. Katie Hill in the 2020 campaign seized on allegations of intimate relationships with two younger subordinates from her 2017 campaign and her congressional office, previewing a line of attack against the California Democrat for 2020.
An explicit photo of Hill, first published by RedState on Friday, shows a naked Hill, 32, sitting on a chair and combing the hair of a fully clothed woman kneeling in front of her. The woman, a former staff member, is alleged to have been in a three-way relationship with Hill and the congresswoman’s now-estranged husband. The “throuple” — a relationship between three people, rather than the more traditional two — is said to have lasted over a year before Hill broke it off early this year as she joined Congress.
Hill, who is open about her bisexuality, did not inform the campaign aide nor her husband about another intimate relationship, with her now-legislative director, Graham Kelly, according to texts and photos.
“The allegations against Congresswoman Katie Hill are very serious and concerning. We should hold our representatives and elected officials to the highest standard. We expect them to conduct themselves with the utmost integrity and respect for the office and their constituents,” Republican candidate Mike Garcia told the Washington Examiner.
“If these allegations are true, they should be properly and thoroughly investigated. The fact that our own representative is even subject to questions of inappropriate behavior while in office is concerning for our district. We expect and deserve better.”
Garcia is one of three Republicans running in the 25th District, which covers northern Los Angeles County. Under California’s “jungle primary” rules, the top two finishers in the June first round of voting will run against each other in the November election.
In 2018, Hill defeated Republican incumbent Steve Knight, with 54%. Voting registration in the district is evenly split, and 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton beat President Trump there 50-44%. She is a member of the House Democratic leadership and sits on the House Oversight and Reform Committee, one of three panels conducting an impeachment inquiry of Trump over the Ukraine whistleblower affair.
Hill is being challenged by five opponents, four Republicans and one Democrat, in her state’s “jungle primary” in 2020.
Angela Underwood Jacobs, another Republican primary challenger of Hill’s, pointed to the House Ethics code of official conduct and called on Hill to resign from Congress.
“While I believe that elected officials should be afforded a reasonable level of privacy, Ms. Hill’s relationships with two different members of her staff cross the line of ethical boundaries that members of Congress should be held to,” Underwood Jacobs said. “Ms. Hill’s behavior exhibits extremely poor judgment — it violates House ethics and it could have put our nation at risk due to her heightened potential to be blackmailed.”
[Related: House Democratic leaders dodge questions over naked photo of Rep. Katie Hill]
