Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas) told CNN on Tuesday that he is "not going to resign" from Congress, even as text messages, police reports, and calls from within his own party continue to tighten the vise around his political future.
The embattled congressman has been engulfed in scandal following revelations about sexual text messages he exchanged with Regina Santos-Aviles, a 35-year-old congressional aide who fatally set herself on fire at her Uvalde, Texas, home in September 2025. She died on Sept. 14, the day after she self-immolated. Her death was ruled a suicide.
Confronted by CNN reporter Manu Raju, Gonzales offered little clarity, dodging questions about whether the texts were real or the extent of the alleged affair. His only response: "What you've seen is not all the facts."
That may be true. But what the public has seen is damning enough.
Text messages released Monday by Santos-Aviles' husband, Adrian Aviles, show Gonzales asking her to "send me a sexy pic" shortly after midnight on May 9, 2024. The messages also show Gonzales pressured her to discuss her preferred sexual positions and shared his own before she protested that the conversation had gone "too far."
Santos-Aviles had been employed by Gonzales' congressional office since 2021, serving as his regional director in Texas. According to her husband and an ex-colleague, the alleged affair included purported trysts at a rental cabin in Concan, Texas, around May 2024. The couple separated in August 2024 after several months of marital counseling.
A little over a year later, Santos-Aviles was dead.
Police reports made public Monday paint a harrowing picture, the New York Post reported. In her final words to officers who arrived at the scene, Santos-Aviles blamed her estranged husband. The officer-authored report states:
She discovered her husband was cheating on her with her best friend, and as a result, she poured gasoline on herself and set herself on fire.
Adrian Aviles has forcefully denied those accusations. He told The Post on Monday:
Those allegations are completely false.
He identified the woman described as Santos-Aviles' "best friend" as "also my childhood friend," adding that "there was no sexual relation between the two of us." He has previously insisted that "Regina was not pregnant" and that she "was a completely stable … mentally sane person before all of this."
Aviles also told Uvalde police that Santos-Aviles had been taking antidepressants and consuming alcohol regularly, sometimes mixing the two, and that she had possibly been to a mental health hospital in her teenage years.
Whatever the full truth of the marriage, one fact is not in dispute: a woman is dead, and the congressman she worked for was sending her sexual messages in the middle of the night.
The personal dimension of this story is tragic. The political dimension is corrosive.
Before the texts went public, Adrian Aviles and his attorney Bobby Barrera had been quietly seeking an up to $300,000 settlement with Gonzales for alleged sexual harassment and workplace retaliation. Gonzales has accused Aviles of attempting to blackmail him and suggested he had ulterior political motives. Aviles has rejected both claims.
Gonzales was probed by the Office of Congressional Conduct one month after the Daily Mail first broke news of the sex scandal. The scope and status of that investigation remain unclear.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) called the allegations "serious" but has not said Gonzales should exit his race or resign from office, indicating that ethics investigations should play out first. That's a measured posture, but it also buys time for a situation that is deteriorating by the day.
Nearly half a dozen House Republicans have been less patient, calling for Gonzales to resign or drop out of his re-election bid. The House Freedom Caucus has endorsed his primary opponent, YouTuber and firearms enthusiast Brandon Herrera. Voters in Texas' 23rd Congressional District head to the polls on March 3 to choose their preferred Republican candidate.
There is a version of this story that is purely personal, a marriage that fell apart, a woman who struggled, a man who made private choices he now regrets. If Tony Gonzales were a private citizen, that version might be the only one that mattered.
But he isn't a private citizen. He is a sitting member of Congress who exchanged sexual messages with a subordinate on his own staff. The power imbalance alone makes this a workplace conduct issue, not merely a personal failing. Santos-Aviles worked for him. She answered to him. The texts suggest he pushed a conversation she tried to stop.
Conservatives rightly hammered Democrats for years over exactly this kind of behavior. The standard doesn't change based on party affiliation. A congressman pressuring a staffer into sexual conversations is a problem whether the congressman has a D or an R after his name. Integrity means applying the same rules to your own side, especially when it's uncomfortable.
Gonzales is seeking a fourth term. He says the public hasn't seen all the facts. Perhaps. But the facts already public include a dead woman, sexual texts, a congressional ethics probe, a settlement demand, and a congressman who won't answer direct questions.
Texas' 23rd District deserves a representative whose primary challenge is serving constituents, not managing scandal. The voters will have their say on March 3. Whatever facts remain hidden, the ones already in the light are enough to demand answers far more complete than "not going to resign."
Regina Santos-Aviles was a mother of one. She was 35 years old. She set herself on fire and died the next day. That is the gravity at the center of this story, and no amount of political maneuvering should be allowed to obscure it.