Story highlights House rules generally prohibit the use of official resources for campaign purposes

Elizabeth Peace was Blake Farenthold's communications director from May 2015 to March 2017

(CNN) A former aide to GOP Rep. Blake Farenthold contacted the House Ethics Committee last week to detail what she said were regular requests from the congressman and his chief of staff to perform campaign-related duties even though she was never paid by or volunteered with his congressional campaign.

Elizabeth Peace, who was Farenthold's communications director from May 2015 to March 2017, told committee lawyers last Wednesday that while she worked for the Texas lawmaker, she was pressured to, and at least on one occasion, yelled at by Farenthold's chief of staff to help with campaign efforts, according to a source familiar with Peace's conversation with committee lawyers.

Peace alleged to the lawyers that the campaign-related duties she was repeatedly asked to handle included answering media inquiries that were explicitly about Farenthold's 2016 re-election campaign and making fliers, this source said. She also claimed that such requests were sometimes sent directly to her official House email account, and on more than one occasion, she was asked to perform these duties when she was physically at Farenthold's congressional office on Capitol Hill during regular work hours. On some of the occasions when she was directed to do campaign-related work during work hours, Peace told lawyers, she did so on a House computer or laptop.

House rules generally prohibit the use of official resources for campaign or political purposes. If Peace's allegations to the ethics committee are found to be true, they could mark campaign finance violations for Farenthold. CNN has not independently confirmed Peace's allegations.

According to the source, Peace insisted to lawyers that she never volunteered with Farenthold's campaign and was never a paid campaign aide, and she alleged that she tried on multiple occasions to express her discomfort with such requests, even as she felt pressure from Farenthold's chief of staff to comply with his requests.

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