Rep. Vance McAllister may send a letter to House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) requesting an FBI investigation into the leak of a surveillance video that showed McAllister kissing a female staff member.
The Monroe News-Star on Wednesday reported that McAllister planned to send the letter today, but a spokesperson for the congressman told TPM in an email that the first-term Louisiana Republican was still thinking it over.
“At this point, there has not been a letter sent to Speaker Boehner,” Jennifer Dunagin, McAllister’s communications director, told TPM in an email. “Right now, the Congressman is exploring the option. This security breach is something that warrants an investigation, but how we go about doing that is yet to be determined.”
The video, which was shot in December at McAllister’s office in Monroe, La., showed McAllister kissing Melissa Peacock , his now-former district scheduler. The video was first published Monday by a small Louisiana newspaper, The Ouachita Citizen, which said it had obtained the video from an anonymous source. On Tuesday, a local pastor came forward and accused another McAllister staff member, Leah Gordon, of leaking the video.
Gordon, who works as the district office manager for McAllister in Monroe, was still on the congressman’s payroll as of Tuesday. TPM’s attempts to reach Gordon on Tuesday were unsuccessful, but McAllister’s chief of staff, Adam Terry, told The News-Star that she had denied the accusation.
