The reported settlement also comes weeks after a leading prospect to challenge Rep. Patrick Meehan (R-Pa.) stepped back from the campaign amid sexual misconduct allegations of his own. | Jacquelyn Martin/AP Photo Rep. Meehan denies harassing former aide amid settlement, loses House ethics seat

Rep. Pat Meehan (R-Pa.) on Saturday lost his seat on the House ethics committee even as he denied charges that he harassed a former aide with whom he confidentially settled a workplace misconduct claim using funds from his congressional office budget.

Meehan's settlement with his former aide, first reported by The New York Times, comes as the House prepares for an expected vote as soon as this month on a bipartisan bill that would prevent members from using their office budgets to settle harassment claims.


The reported settlement also comes weeks after a leading prospect to challenge Meehan — a top Democratic target in this year's midterm elections — stepped back from the campaign amid sexual misconduct allegations of his own.

Meehan spokesman John Elizandro said by email Saturday that the fourth-term GOP lawmaker "denies the allegations" lodged by his former aide, who charged that the work environment became hostile after she declined more than one expression of romantic interest from Meehan.

"Throughout his career he has always treated his colleagues, male and female, with the utmost respect and professionalism," Elizandro said.

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Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) "takes the allegations against Mr. Meehan very seriously," spokeswoman AshLee Strong said in a statement. "The speaker is committed to rooting out sexual misconduct in the House and providing victims the resources they need."

To that end, Strong said, Ryan would use some of the new bipartisan bill's guidelines in the Meehan incident and notify the Pennsylvania Republican to "repay whatever taxpayer funds were used to settle this case."

Meehan also "will immediately submit himself to the Ethics Committee for review" following a conversation with Ryan, Strong said, and will no longer sit on that committee, effective immediately.

Elizandro added that an investigation was conducted into the former aide's claims, adding that Meehan "would only act with advice of House Counsel and consistent with House Ethics Committee guidance. Every step of the process was handled ethically and appropriately."

Meehan is also requesting that the former aide's attorney waive the terms of the confidentiality agreement covering the harassment settlement "to ensure a full and open airing of all the facts," according to Elizandro. Although the settlement came from Meehan's office budget rather than a publicly funded account maintained by Capitol Hill's workplace misconduct adjudicator, the Office of Compliance, the terms of the agreement typically remain confidential in either case.

Alexis Ronickher, the attorney who represented Meehan's former aide, pushed back on Saturday and charged Meehan with attempting to re-victimize her client by forcing the disclosure of her identity. The House ethics investigation should include a probe of whether Meehan breached the confidentiality of the settlement, she said.

"In an effort to preserve his career, Rep. Meehan has now asked my client to waive confidentiality so he can deny well-grounded allegations knowing full well that his former staffer prizes her privacy above all else," Ronickher said by email.

"Mr. Meehan demanded confidentiality to resolve the matter, presumably so that the public would never know that he entered into a settlement of a serious sexual harassment claim. Now that it has become public — due to no fault of my client’s — he has flouted his legal obligations and is speaking publicly."

"We will not allow our client to be victimized twice by this man," Ronickher continued. "If he further violates the confidentiality strictures he insisted upon and he agreed to, he will leave our client no choice but to seek legal recourse on her behalf."

Two Democrats vying for the nomination to take on Meehan in November, Dan Muroff and Drew McGinty, called for the Republican to resign in the wake of the reported harassment settlement.

"What the hell, Pat Meehan?" Muroff said in a statement Saturday, adding that Meehan should lose all of his committee assignments if he does not step down from Congress.