WASHINGTON—Illinois Rep. Aaron Schock had an interior design company called Euro Trash decorate his office in a style inspired by the PBS period drama Downton Abbey. An ethics watchdog says his actions “may undermine the public’s faith in government.”

Not because of the “massive arrangements of pheasant feathers,” “gold-coloured wall sconce with black candles,” or “drippy crystal chandelier,” all observed by a Washington Post reporter, all calling into question the man’s judgment. The real problem, according to Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), is that Schock, a Republican, allegedly had Euro Trash do the designing for free.

Congressional rules forbid members from accepting gifts of services worth more than $50. And they specifically prohibit the use of outside donations to pay office expenses.

“It’s such a clear-cut violation of the rules,” CREW interim executive director Anne Weismann said in an interview on Thursday. “The House rules are very clear that members can only use either their office funds or their personal funds to decorate their offices. And that didn’t happen here. It’s just a clear violation. These rules exist for a reason.”

Schock, attempting to cut the controversy short, told ABC that he would get an invoice once the work was completed and cover the cost out of his own pocket. Weismann said that wouldn’t be the end of her group’s formal complaint to the Office of Congressional Ethics: CREW also believes there is reason to suspect Schock paid for the actual furnishings with campaign funds.

The spokeswoman for the ethics office said she could not comment. Schock, a 33-year-old who uses his Instagram account to cultivate a reputation for youthful cool, dismissed the whole thing with an appeal to teen authority.

“As Taylor Swift said, haters are gonna hate,” he told ABC.

He immediately faced a hate controversy. The liberal website ThinkProgress discovered a series of Facebook posts from the 2013 government shutdown in which his spokesman — the man who tried to get the Post to quash the original office story — likened black people to animals.

“So apparently the closing of the National Zoo has forced the animals to conduct their mating rituals on my street. #gentrifytoday,” Benjamin Cole captioned a video of a woman shouting near his home.

BuzzFeed discovered more posts in the same vein, including one in which Cole said a mosque should be built on White House grounds to serve President Barack Obama, who is not a Muslim. Cole resigned Thursday.

“I am extremely disappointed by the inexcusable and offensive online comments made by a member of my staff,” Schock told the Peoria Journal Star.

He also distanced himself from the office. The bright red walls, he told ABC, are “Republican red,” not Downton red.

Not only did he not personally select the Downton theme, he said, he has never seen an episode.