An activist with a documented history of peddling fabricated smears against Rep. Lauren Boebert filed an unverified ethics complaint alleging she had sexual relationships with three staffers, and the establishment press ran it as headline news before substantiating a single claim.
The complaint, filed September 17 by David Wheeler of the American Muckrakers PAC, doesn't even meet the House Ethics Committee's procedural requirements for review — and every person named in it has denied the allegations. But that didn't stop outlets from treating salacious, unconfirmed claims against a conservative congresswoman as front-page material, the same press corps that routinely sits on verified scandals involving Democrat lawmakers.
Wheeler claims Boebert carried on relationships with former district director Clarice Navarro Ratzlaff, former chief of staff Jeffrey Small, and current chief of staff Raven Finegan. He alleges Boebert paid Ratzlaff $200,000 to stay quiet after the relationship ended. The complaint includes financial disclosure records showing substantial payroll payments to all three — which is what you'd expect for senior congressional staff over multiple years, not evidence of hush money.
Ratzlaff called the claims
