PHOENIX — Members of the Senate Ethics Committee voted Thursday evening to have its attorney pursue the complaint filed against first-term Sen. Wendy Rogers by a now-fired staffer.
The 5-0 vote is a setback for the Flagstaff Republican who argued that nothing in the complaint by Michael Polloni, even if true, violates the rules governing the conduct of a senator. And Rogers, in her formal response also said there was nothing in the allegations that were a violation of public trust, improper conduct that adversely reflects on the Senate, or broke the law.
Thursday’s action does not mean that Rogers will be found guilty or be punished. It simply means that committee members, after being briefed behind closed doors by the staff attorney, concluded there was enough there to merit a closer look.
Apollo 14 astronauts Alan Shepard and Edgar Mitchell stepped onto the surface of the moon in the first of two lunar excursions, and more events that happened on this day in history.
The panel will meet again on Jan. 11 to review the findings.
Polloni, who had started as a campaign volunteer for Rogers before being hired, said that the senator made a series of comments about him and his family.
“She told me that I need to lose weight and that she wants me to look good when I am sitting behind the desk representing her,” he said in his signed and sworn complaint.
He also said she made comments about his sister, who is gay, asking him why. And Polloni said Rogers also talked about his uncle who is a conservative and his aunt who is a liberal, ask why they are married “and saying it wasn’t right.”
Beyond that, Polloni said Rogers yelled in his face to the point “I could feel her spit on my face” and described an incident when the senator “slammed the door and almost smashed my hand.”
Polloni also complained that after he contracted COVID-19, had to stay home but that Rogers suggested he was faking it, saying her “bull-- — detector was really going off.”
He eventually was terminated.
Rogers, a former Air Force pilot, has been one of the challengers of the presidential election returns. She also sent out a Twitter message saying it was “radical Antifa mobs” that attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6.
