Sen. Joni Ernst denies ex-husband's allegation that she had an affair, says she is 'a survivor'
CEDAR FALLS, Ia. — Sen. Joni Ernst says allegations by her ex-husband that she had an affair with a subordinate while serving in the military are not true.
"That is not accurate and I was a company commander overseas and took that job very, very seriously," the Iowa Republican said.
The senator became emotional after answering several deeply personal questions from the media about her recent divorce, which includes allegations of affairs and a physical assault. She said it is difficult for her to talk about her own experience but vowed to continue supporting survivors of abuse.
"What I want people to understand is that I am the same person as I was last week. You just know more about what’s inside of me now," she said.
She spoke with members of the media after a public town hall event on the University of Northern Iowa campus in Cedar Falls Wednesday, where the topic did not come up.
In court documents that have since been sealed from the public, Ernst and her ex-husband, Gail Ernst, accused each other of having affairs and Joni Ernst accused Gail Ernst of physically assaulting her. The documents were part of divorce filings. The divorce was finalized this month.
Gail Ernst accused Joni of having an affair with one of her soldiers while she was deployed as a company commander. He caught her secretly emailing him, he wrote.
"She admitted to the affair, said she was sorry and begged me not to say anything," Gail Ernst wrote. But their daughter was 4 at the time, he wrote, so he "swallowed (his) pride and kept quiet."
Joni Ernst, speaking publicly about the allegations for the first time on Wednesday, said that a number of her former soldiers "are extremely supportive" of her.
"They were online with me yesterday and texting me about how supportive they were," she said. "And so I care about all of my soldiers. Many of them refer to me as 'Mom.' So no, the allegation is not true."
The Ernsts announced last summer that they were divorcing after a 26-year marriage.
Joni Ernst said she believed the court documents would be sealed from the public, so media reporting on the allegations this week "did catch me off guard."
"I am a survivor and I fully believe that our survivors have the right to keep their stories to themselves if they don’t want to share those stories or are not ready to share those stories and unfortunately I have been forced to share my story," she said.
A judge on Tuesday sealed most of the records in the divorce case at the request of the Ernsts. Under Iowa law, divorce records are automatically made public when the divorce is finalized. But parties can request to keep some records private.
"I would love to point the finger and say, 'Somebody screwed up. Somebody leaked.' But they’re out there and so now I will deal with that," Ernst said. "But what I want people to understand is that I am the same person as I was last week. You just know more about what’s inside of me now."
Ernst, 48, a military veteran from Red Oak, Iowa, was the first woman in the state elected to either chamber of Congress. She defeated Democrat Bruce Braley in 2014 to win a six-year term in the Senate after emerging victorious from a five-way Republican primary for the nomination. She has said she will seek a second term in the Senate in 2020.
At some point while she was Montgomery County Auditor between 2005 and 2011, her husband had a "special friendship" with their daughter's babysitter, whom she said he spent time with even when their daughter was not there, Joni Ernst claimed in an October affidavit. The affidavit wasn't specific about when the argument happened, but she said she confronted her husband about it.
"We went through a very dark and troubling time in our marriage," Ernst wrote. "I very nearly filed for divorce after a night that we argued, and it became physical."
Joni Ernst said she fled to her mother's house with her daughter in the middle of the night. Gail Ernst followed soon after, crying and apologizing, according to her affidavit.
The next day, a victim's advocate at the courthouse performed an examination of Ernst's throat and head, she said. The advocate wanted to take Ernst to the hospital, according to the court filing. Ernst declined, writing that she was "embarrassed and humiliated" and did not want people to know about what she described as an assault.