Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, was recently heard on recorded audio going off on one of her staff members in a profanity-laced tirade in which she said he and another staff member had no brains and are “f- -k-ups.”
Jackson Lee, a Hillary Clinton-endorsed congresswoman who built a reputation in Washington as being one of the “meanest” members of Congress, has represented the same Houston, Texas district in the House of Representatives for over 28 years.
In March, Jackson Lee threw her name in the running to become the mayor of Houston in an off-year election, which if elected, would bring her time in Congress to an end.
Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee has introduced a bill intended to curb fentanyl overdose deaths. (Fox News Digital/Jon Michael Raasch)
In audio obtained by Texas newspaper Current Revolt and published on Saturday Jackson Lee is heard speaking with a male staff member when she asked, “You took a piece of paper from that woman regarding something that was owned by Duncantell. Where is it? What date was it?”
The man answered by telling the representative he gave the piece of paper to Jerome, who took it upstairs. The staff member then tells Jackson Lee he has to call Jerome, before being cut off.
“I don’t want you to do a [expletive] thing,” she said. “I want you to have a [expletive] brain. I want you to have read it. I want you to say, ‘Congresswoman, it was such and such a date. That’s what I want. That’s the kind of staff that I want to have.”
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WASHINGTON, DC – NOVEMBER 30: (L-R) U.S. Rep. Lucy McBath (D-GA) and U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) depart a leadership election meeting with the Democratic caucus in the Longworth House Office Building on Capitol Hill November 30, 2022, in Washington, DC. Rep. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images) (Getty Images)
Jackson Lee continued to spew profanity at the staffer as she berated him over how she expects her staff members to handle calendar events, especially those from Ovide Duncantell, founder of the Black Heritage Society, Inc.
Rather than pawn it off to someone else, the congresswoman said she needs whoever took the information about the event to know when and where the event takes place.
But in this case, the staffer sounded on the audio as if he gave it to another staffer.
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HOUSTON, TEXAS – MARCH 18: Sheila Jackson Lee attends the Praise In The Park concert at Buffalo Bayou Park on March 18, 2023, in Houston, Texas. (Photo by Marcus Ingram/Getty Images) (Marcus Ingram/Getty Images)
“When I called Jerome, he only sits up there like a fat [expletive], just talking about what the [expletive] he doesn’t know,” she said. “Both of y’all are [expletive]-ups…This is the worst [expletive] that I could’ve ever had put together. Two [expletive] big [expletive] children. [expletive] idiots. Serve no [expletive] purpose.
“Nobody’s respecting him, nobody gives a [expletive] about what you’re doing. And you ain’t doing [expletive]. And this is an example of it. I gave it to Jerome. This is not child’s work, ok,” Jackson Lee said.
The congresswoman did not immediately respond to Fox News inquiries about the recording.
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FILE PHOTO: House Homeland Security Committee member Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) questions witnesses during a hearing about ‘worldwide threats to the homeland’ in the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., September 17, 2020. Chip Somodevilla/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo
This is not the first time Jackson Lee has gone off on staff members. In fact, in 2011, a Daily Caller report cited a number of former staff members as saying she used demeaning language and name-calling when addressing them.
She also was accused of forcing her staff members to work long hours, even into the early hours of the morning, and demanding them to drive her everywhere she went regardless of how short the distance.
Jackson Lee was forced to resign as the chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation (CBCF) in 2019 in the wake of a lawsuit by a former employee who claimed she was fired as retaliation for planned legal action related to an alleged 2015 rape by a supervisor.
According to The New York Times, which first reported on Jackson Lee’s plans to resign, CBCF board members told Jackson Lee to step down as chairwoman or face a removal vote after the lawsuit became public a week earlier.
In the suit, the unnamed former staffer alleged she was raped while a CBCF intern by the foundation’s internship program coordinator and her supervisor at the time. Two years later, she was hired to work for Jackson Lee, who had recently been made chairwoman of the CBCF’s board of directors. Shortly after she was hired, Doe said Jackson Lee received a text message from the CBCF’s chief executive at the time, A. Shaunise Washington.
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“I just received a notification that you have a new staffer,” Washington allegedly messaged Jackson Lee, mentioning the staffer’s name. “Call me, I have background on her.”
The staffer said she was fired in March 2018, roughly two weeks after she told Jackson’s chief of staff, Glenn Rushing, that she had “recently learned more about her case involving Mr. Jones and CBCF and planned to move forward with legal action” against the foundation.
The lawsuit was dismissed in 2020.
Brandon Gillespie of Fox News Digital contributed to this report.
