House ethics officials investigated Rep. Jim Costa over allegations that the California Democrat made inappropriate advances to two congressional interns, NOTUS has learned.

A former House Democratic staffer filed a complaint with House ethics officials in early 2023 alleging that Costa behaved inappropriately and made advances toward her in February 2020, when she was an intern for a different lawmaker. The woman also alleged that she saw Costa behave inappropriately with another female intern in December 2021.

The woman recounted that Costa made her “uncomfortable,” in a virtual interview with Office of Congressional Ethics staff in June 2023.

NOTUS obtained a 98-page transcript of the interview and spoke with the woman and three people familiar with the accusations, all of whom were granted anonymity to speak about the sensitive matter. The investigation has not been previously reported. Investigations conducted by the Office of Congressional Conduct — at the time called the Office of Congressional Ethics — must be made public unless both the OCC and the Ethics Committee move to dismiss the case, which it did in the case of Costa.

The woman did not report Costa until about three years after the incident, when she had a more secure staff position in Congress and wasn’t “scared about my job,” she told NOTUS.

“Eventually, I was like, you know what? I have enough cachet,” she said.

In response to NOTUS’ multiple detailed requests for comment, Lisa Ortiz, Costa’s press secretary, said: “Rep. Costa fully cooperated with a review conducted by [OCC] and the House Committee on Ethics several years ago. The OCC recommended dismissal, and the Ethics Committee unanimously voted to dismiss the matter.”

“We take issue with a number of the accounts in your email, but we are not going to address them point-by-point. The actions of the OCC and the Ethics Committee speak for themselves,” Ortiz continued.

OCE staff spoke to the woman, who left her job in Congress last year, at least twice in the summer of 2023, and Costa was interviewed by House ethics officials. The woman told the OCE that she attended an event hosted by the California State Society, a nonprofit organization that connects Californians who live in Washington, on Feb. 5, 2020, when she was a 22-year-old intern. Costa was 67 at the time. An Instagram post from the California State Society shows Costa at the event that year.

The woman told OCE staff that Costa approached her as she was leaving and waiting for her items in the checked bag area. She said she wasn’t sure who he was but saw his congressional pin and knew that, as an intern, she should be “extra sure to be extra nice.”

“First, he greeted me, and then said, are you here alone? I said, yes. I said, I’m waiting for my bag. I’m going home. He said, oh no, why would you go home? It’s such a nice night. Don’t you want to dance? I was like, I’ve already danced. He’s like, well, I didn’t dance with you,” the woman told OCE staff, per the interview transcript.

She said he asked her multiple times to return to the event so they could dance. After declining to return to the event, he asked her if she “knew how to shimmy,” the woman recounted. After she said yes, “He said, well, then let’s shimmy.” She clarified that they “shimmied” by “the checked bag area,” which she said was “right at the front of the venue.”

“Every time I leaned back, it seemed like he got farther forward. So I was grateful that I could do a back bend. It was a very uncomfortable situation,” the woman continued.

“That’s a scary situation. Especially when you’re an intern and you don’t know what relationships that you could mess up,” she said. “Yeah, I guess he started the conversation. I was gracious and responded. And then he immediately asked me to shimmy. I don’t know about you, but it’s a very sexual and awkward dance move.”

After the dancing stopped, the woman told OCE staff, Costa asked her if she worked in Congress, to which she replied she was an intern.

“He said, well, I’d love to help you with your career. And I said, oh, thank you,” she went on. She told OCE staff that Costa then wrote his personal phone number on the back of his business card and said, “call me. I’d love to help you or we can grab dinner.”

“He just said I would love to help you with your career. Let’s get dinner. Which when it comes from a powerful man, does not mean I want to help you. It means what will you give me in return. Which I don’t know. I’m not dumb. I knew what it meant,” the woman said in her interview. When one of the investigators asked the woman if “that insinuation was in your mind a sexual insinuation,” the woman said yes.

The woman told OCE staff that after Costa walked away, a man who witnessed the congressman handing her his business card approached her and said: “I’d be very careful what you do with that phone number. Nobody cares who you date in DC unless you’re dating your boss.” The woman repeated the same quote when she was interviewed again a week later, and in an interview with NOTUS in April.

The man, whose identity the woman shared with the OCE, told NOTUS that he remembers telling the woman to “be careful.” When describing the alleged event, he said, “What I saw was so wrong.” He told NOTUS that he spoke with investigators but was unsure whether they were from the OCE or the Ethics Committee.

The woman told investigators the man’s words were “certainly helpful. And I guess indicative of me knowing that it was an inappropriate situation, and that I should be cautious of moving forward.”

Recounting that evening to NOTUS, the woman said she called her mom and told her that she felt “weirded out” by the exchange and asked her if she should text Costa. Her mom told her not to.

The woman told OCE staff that she ran into Costa the next day in the Capitol complex and he asked her why she did not text him the night before. She told him that she “didn’t get around to it yet.” She said he then asked her if she had a boyfriend: “I said, no.” Costa — who is not married — followed up by indicating that he did not have a girlfriend and said to her, “Mama was never proud of me,” she recalled.

“I said, oh, and he winked,” she told the OCE, per the transcript.

Before they parted ways that day, the woman said, “he said, well, make sure that you call me and send my — chief of staff your resume. We really want to help you. And I want to take you out to dinner.”

The OCE staff asked the woman if Costa gave “any indication about why he felt the need to tell you that he didn’t have a girlfriend.” The woman suggested it was because “he never settled down and he continues [to] hit on young women, I guess. He in the past has gotten in trouble for paying for sex as well. There are articles about it,” according to the interview transcript. The Los Angeles Times reported in 1986 that Costa, then an assemblyman in Fresno, apologized for soliciting an act of prostitution from a woman who was wired with a police transmitter. Costa, who was in his 30s, was also reportedly accompanied by a 19-year-old sex worker.

The woman eventually texted Costa on Feb. 10, 2020; she explained to the OCE staff that she felt like “if I didn’t do these things, my career would be ruined.” NOTUS viewed the messages she exchanged with Costa.

“My apologies for taking a bit to message you on your personal phone. I [sic] was nice to meet you then, and great to see you on Thursday,” the woman said in her text, reminding him they met at the California State Society event. “I sent my resume over to your Chief of Staff last week. Thanks for your openness! I look forward to seeing you around the House in the future.”

A few hours later, Costa responded, saying that he would speak with his chief of staff and asked her how her weekend went. She texted that she “had a great weekend” and asked about his weekend. Costa replied: “Just work & campaigning for re-election !!! You up for dinner tomorrow night ?? Jim.”

The woman texted that she was unavailable, “but perhaps you’re free for a midday coffee or lunch.” Costa did not respond to that text. The woman texted him again a week later to let him know she had applied for a position in his office. The text messages were marked “read” by Costa but he did not respond.

When the OCE staff asked the woman if she’d told another member of Congress about her interactions with Costa, she said she told California Rep. Ami Bera. While the interview transcript did not specify when or where she told Bera, the woman told NOTUS it was in February 2022.

To ensure that no one else would hear, “I wrote in my notes to him specifically and I passed him my phone,” she told the OCE, referring to Bera. “And I said, Jim Costa hit on me and asked me to dinner saying that he would help me with my career, which I knew he wouldn’t, unless I did something for him.”

“The OCC recommended dismissal, and the Ethics Committee unanimously voted to dismiss the matter,” a Costa spokesperson said. Caroline Brehman/AP

“I passed my phone to him, and he looked at it. And that’s when he turned around and said, I’m so sorry that happened, but it’s not unexpected,” she added.

Bera’s communications director, Louie Kahn, told NOTUS in a statement that Bera “has no recollection of this happening. Had an intern approached him about this, his advice unequivocally would have been for the individual to file a formal complaint.”

Khan added that the House Ethics Committee “has not reached out to Congressman Bera about these allegations.”

Following the resignations of Reps. Eric Swalwell and Tony Gonzales last month, the Ethics Committee released a statement encouraging “anyone who may have experienced sexual misconduct by a House Member or staffer” to report it to the committee.

Consensual romantic relationships between a member and staff who work for them are also forbidden under House rules. Rep. Chuck Edwards, a Republican from North Carolina, is being investigated by the House Ethics Committee over allegations he had an affair with a former staffer, as NOTUS reported last week. Edwards said he would “welcome any investigation.” Additionally, NOTUS previously reported that Democratic Rep. Alma Adams of North Carolina was investigated by the House Ethics Committee regarding allegations that she had an inappropriate relationship with an employee. Adams’ spokesperson told NOTUS the committee closed the matter and did not find any improper relationship.

The committee revealed that it has initiated 20 investigations related to allegations of sexual misconduct by House members since 2017. However, it identified only 15 of the lawmakers, and Costa’s name was not listed.

The OCE, now the OCC, which began the investigation into Costa, is an independent, nonpartisan office created in 2008 to review misconduct allegations against House members and staff and later make recommendations and referrals to the Ethics Committee.

Rep. Michael Guest, the chair of the House Ethics Committee, told NOTUS that the committee did not identify the remaining five because “we couldn’t substantiate the allegations against those members.” Guest does not answer questions publicly about specific investigations. The Ethics Committee and the OCC declined to comment.

“We weren’t going to release the names of members where there was no evidence found by the Ethics Committee of any violation,” Guest said.

In her interview with OCE staff in 2023, the woman said that shortly after the incident at the California State Society event, she spoke to at least one woman and asked “if it would be stupid for me to tell anyone, if that would hurt my prospect of getting a job. And she said, yes, that this is not uncommon, that it is expected from this member and that I should not say anything because it would ruin my career on Capitol Hill. She said it’s happened to many girls that she knows.”

About a month after her last text messages with Costa, the COVID pandemic shutdown began and Hill staff largely worked from home. The woman’s internship ended, and she returned to California.

“Part of me was like, this is a fucking blessing,” she told NOTUS. “Thank God. Like, I don’t have to see this person. Maybe I’ll have a restart later and not have to worry about this.”

Eventually, she got a job on Capitol Hill and returned to Washington. The woman worked on the Hill between June 2020 and March 2025 across different congressional offices, according to LegiStorm, a database that includes congressional employment records. She has since moved from Washington and now works as a lobbyist.

The woman said she also witnessed another incident involving Costa and a female intern in a Senate office, according to the June 2023 interview transcript. She told the OCE that the intern expressed she was uncomfortable.

The woman said she attended a second California State Society event at the American History Museum in December 2021 with a male staffer. The woman told the OCE staff that she saw Costa approach a group of interns and ask the Senate intern to dance.

“She very uncomfortably and awkwardly said yes. At which point he started spinning her around, like, touching, dancing,” she said. “Everyone was staring. A lot of people were taking photos. At which point, I looked at [the male staffer] and said, you go grab her hand and I will grab his.”

“I grabbed Jim Costa’s hand, spun him around and said, hi, sir. So lovely to see you again. You know, maybe next time you’ll think before hitting on an underage woman,” she told the OCE staff. Costa, the woman added, “looked flabbergasted and left the dance floor.”

The intern, who the woman named in her interview with the OCE, did not respond to NOTUS’ requests for comment. It’s unclear whether she ever reported the incident or if she spoke to the OCE during its investigation of Costa.

NOTUS spoke with the male staffer, who no longer works on the Hill, who accompanied the woman to the event. He said that he was “surprised” when two investigators called him in the summer of 2023 and asked him about the December 2021 incident. They spoke for less than 30 minutes, he said.

“I was like, oh, that’s kind of weird,” he told NOTUS of Costa’s close dancing with the intern. “No one [else] was dancing like that, like holding each other.” He added that he and the woman agreed that separating the congressman from the intern “was the right thing to do — the right way to break it up without causing a scene.”

The man added that the woman found the intern crying in a bathroom at the event, but he didn’t know what happened after that. The woman told OCE staff that in the bathroom, the intern said, “Did I ruin my career by dancing with him? What am I going to do? I feel so uncomfortable.”

The woman said the intern “expressed that she felt scared to say no to him, that she felt pressured into dancing with him, that she felt very scared and uncomfortable, and immediately went home.” The intern’s LinkedIn profile indicates that she did not return to work in Congress after her internship ended in December 2021.

The California State Society said in a statement that it “is committed to ensuring our events are safe and fun for everyone involved, and was not aware of the allegations that you reference.”

A source familiar with the matter said the organization received a “Request for Information” letter from the OCE but it did not contain specific information about what or who the office was investigating.

Toward the end of the June 2023 interview, OCE staff asked the woman who filed the complaint how she felt.

“I actually still get a pit in my stomach when I see him. I still get scared, still feel uncomfortable,” she said. “Everything kind of clenches, like my heart clenches, my — my belly feels like it drops a little bit, and I get really scared.”

“I think it’s just mostly like a trauma response. I know he can’t hurt me. At least, I’m pretty damn sure he can’t hurt me now, at least. But you never — I mean, you never know,” she continued. “I still tell — tell people this story to this day, and they’re like, oh, my God, like I wouldn’t tell anyone that story. Like, that would ruin your career. But I succeeded, so I don’t care anymore.”

The OCE eventually referred its investigation to the House Ethics Committee.

Over the course of several House Ethics Committee meetings, members debated what to do about Costa, according to a person who was in the room for the discussions. The person said that some lawmakers who had traveled with Costa on congressional delegation trips, or CODELs, shared “very freely” what they had “observed about him and that he definitely has a problem.”

Ultimately, the committee “didn’t find enough evidence to proceed,” the person said.

OCC states that a recommendation for dismissal “does not constitute a determination that a violation did not occur, only that the OCE does not have substantial reason to believe a violation occurred.”

Under the current rules of the House of Representatives, members are prohibited from having romantic or sexual relationships with any employee, including interns, directly under their supervision. Such a prohibition does not exist for relationships between lawmakers and staffers, including interns, who work in other congressional offices. But lawmakers are prohibited from engaging “in unwelcome sexual advances or conduct” toward any House employee.

When recounting her allegations against Costa to NOTUS in April, the woman said the actions were “coercion of interns. … You’re taking advantage of the fact that they’re, I don’t want to say dumb, they’re young.”

“I know that this happens everywhere in Congress. And I think that’s why it’s annoying that Ethics doesn’t do its job,” the woman said. “I think their point was like, ‘Oh, he didn’t rape you right?’ Should I have let myself? Should I have gone to the dinner?”