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By Hugh Cameron
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Republican Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky has called the "unsubstantiated" allegations that he tried to bribe an ex-girlfriend with undeclared income an "obvious attempt" to influence his upcoming primary against a challenger endorsed by President Donald Trump.
Cynthia West, a former congressional aide now running for school board in Florida, has alleged that Massie secured her a job in Congress, in the office of Republican Representative Victoria Spartz of Indiana, after the pair struck up a romantic relationship. However, West said Massie soon began engaging in behavior she "wasn't comfortable" with, after which she ended the relationship.
West said Massie offered her $5,000 after she said she would file a wrongful termination complaint against Spartz, who she said had fostered a toxic work environment, and after West raised the issue with the Office of Congressional Workplace Rights (OCWR).
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West said she declined this money as well as a $60,000 settlement payment for "retaliatory discharge," which would have required her to sign a nondisclosure agreement.
Massie has denied West’s allegations—regarding inappropriate conduct and the offer of hush money using undeclared funds—and said he had consulted legal counsel and was “considering all options.”
“It’s sad that a week before this election people are making false and unsubstantiated allegations about me in an obvious attempt to influence the outcome of this election,” he said in a statement shared with Newsweek on Wednesday.
When contacted on Tuesday by Axios, Massie referred the outlet to attorney and political ally Steven Doan, who wrote on social media that there was an "absence of any specific, verifiable allegations" from West and that she had a "documented history of making false abuse allegations."
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Who Is Cynthia West?
West is currently running for the Okaloosa County School Board in Florida, where she is hoping to unseat Brett Hinely, who was appointed by Republican Governor Ron DeSantis. In a recent interview with Florida Politics, she said she was running to improve "transparency and long-term planning" for the county's schools.
According to LegiStorm, West worked between December 2024 and March 2025 as an operations and scheduling director for Spartz, who represents Indiana's 5th Congressional District. Records from Spartz's office show that West was employed between early January and late March, and that she was paid $17,111.10 during this 12-week period.
Her allegations regarding Massie and Spartz first emerged in an interview with the conservative Kentucky lawyer Marcus Carey—who mounted an unsuccessful challenge against Massie in the 2012 Republican primary—which was posted on the website conceivedinliberty.org.
In the 23-minute interview, West said Massie privately messaged her on X in August 2024—two months after the death of his wife, Rhonda—and that the pair quickly began an "intense" relationship.
West said she joined Massie on political excursions and that he encouraged her to leave her job and come to Washington, D.C. to spend more time together. He later secured her a job in Spartz's office, she added.
However, West said she broke off the relationship after Massie asked her "to engage in behavior that I just wasn't comfortable [with], so I just couldn't stay in that relationship."
West called Massie "emotionally abusive," and she said that shortly after breaking up with him, she found out via "text message" that she had been fired.
"I hadn't done anything wrong," West said.
When she contacted the Office of Congressional Workplace Rights (OCWR) regarding her termination and informed Massie of her pending ethics complaint, West said he offered her "cow money" earned from his farm in Kentucky to "just walk away."
"He had $5,000 that he said he would give me if I just walk away. I didn't take it though."
The OCWR told Newsweek it was unable to comment on whether West had brought an ethics case to the agency's attention and noted that it has no influence over the direct settlement negotiations between employees and the offices against which they file a complaint.
Massie's Chances of Winning His Primary
Massie, who is seeking an eighth term in the House, is running against Trump-backed Ed Gallrein in the primary election for Kentucky's 4th Congressional District. The race, which is scheduled for May 19, has become the most expensive House primary in history, with over $25.6 million in ad spending according to Axios which citres AdImpact.
Massie has attributed the heightened interest in this race to his clashes with the Trump administration and his criticisms of U.S. support for Israel.
According to Polymarket, Massie’s odds in the Kentucky primary have dipped since West spoke out—dropping from nearly 80 percent in early May to around 70 as of early on Thursday. On Kalshi, these odds have dropped roughly 10 points over the same period.
A separate survey from Quantus Insights—conducted before the allegations emerged—had Massie trailing the Gallrein 48.3 percent to 43.1.
Massie has either been uncontested or comfortably won his past primaries and subsequent general elections.
West said in her interview with Carey that she was neither affiliated nor working with any active political candidates in Kentucky and had not been paid to bring forward the allegations against Massie.
According to campaign finance records on voterfocus.com, West has raised over $80,000 to support her school board bid. This includes $77,000 secured from October through December of last year, which comprised $1,000 donations from named individuals and businesses and a $65,000 loan from West to herself.
Conservatives Split Over Allegations
The case has engendered a spat between conservative voices and those within the emerging anti-Trump wing of the MAGA movement.
“Allegation only—no independent evidence released yet—but if true, the transparency warrior who demands Epstein files just tried to bury his own,” wrote Erica, a pro-Trump X account with over 200,000 followers, in a post on Tuesday.
In a video posted to YouTube, the conservative commentator Benny Johnson called Massie a “pig” who had been “squealing, calling President Trump's administration the Epstein administration,” and accused him of hypocrisy for having a “dark, abusive affair” with a staffer. Johnson acknowledged that West’s story was so far only an allegation.
Former Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has had a falling-out with Trump over the handling of the Epstein files, wrote in a post on Wednesday:
“Thomas Massie did not mistreat any woman, but happens to have a primary next week so of course out comes a story from a woman who is just jealous she isn’t ‘Mrs Massie.”
Representative Spartz Speaks Out
A spokesperson for Spartz told Newsweek that West held "a temporary 90-day probationary position with our office, and her employment was not extended beyond that period due to unsatisfactory job performance."
The spokesperson declined to comment further on what they called "Ms. West's pending allegations."
Spartz posted an extended response to West's allegations on X on Wednesday, in which she said she was unaware of any alleged $5,000 offer to her from Massie.
"The first time Rep. Spartz heard these accusations by Ms. West against Rep. Massie was a few days ago in Ms. West’s public video," the statement read.
However, Spartz indicated that her office had in the past offered a settlement payment to West, writing that until recently she was “willing to reconsider settlement discussions in order to save taxpayer money and mitigate disruptions to the operation of the office.”
Spartz went on to call Massie "one of the strongest supporters of women in Congress," and said she would be would be "happy to publicly disclose" all details regarding West's employment "if permitted to do so."
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Massie has directed outlets to comments Doan made on X, in which he said that in 2024, a court in Florida dismissed a domestic violence complaint West had made against her then-husband, Timothy West.
She told Axios the petition failed because she chose to represent herself rather than hire an attorney, as court records confirm.
Newsweek has contacted Timothy West for comment via the attorney who represented him in the domestic violence case.
Doan, who serves in the Kentucky House of Representatives, did not directly counter West's allegations against Massie, but he said she had provided "no evidence of any kind" to support these.
Update 5/14/26, 5:25 a.m. ET: This article was updated with additional information and a response from the OCWR.
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