WASHINGTON: Repub­li­can lawmaker Trent Franks offered a female staff member $5 million to bear his child, US media reported on Friday as he abruptly resigned from Congress where he was facing an ethics probe over sexual misconduct.

Franks, an eight-term lawmaker from Arizona, had announced a day earlier that he would be stepping down from the House of Representatives on Jan 31.

In that statement, he acknowledged that he had discussed surrogacy with two female staffers, but he did not provide details about the discussions. In a new statement on Friday, he said he was vacating his seat in Congress immediately, US media reported.

The Washington Post, citing Andrea Lafferty, the president of the Traditional Values Coalition, said one of the women was told she would be given $5 million to “conceive” his child.

The woman rejected Franks’s offer but felt sidelined and later quit her job,.

Politico, citing congressional sources with knowledge of the complaints, said the two female staffers had been approached about acting as a potential surrogate for him and his wife — Franks says he and his wife have struggled with fertility for years.

The women, according to the sources, were concerned that the congressman was asking to have sex with them, and that it was unclear whether he was asking about the prospect of impregnating them through sexual intercourse or in vitro fertilisation.

In his initial statement, Franks said he “absolutely never physically intimidated, coerced, or had, or attempted to have, any sexual contact with any member of my congressional staff.”

Published in Dawn, December 10th, 2017