A Democrat Congresswoman is being investigated for allegedly bribing a primary opponent not to challenge her. Investigators say there is “substantial evidence” that Illinois Rep. Marie Newman paid a potential primary opponent to stay out of her race in exchange for a job in her congressional office.

The Daily Wire reports:

“Rep. Newman, during a successful campaign for election to the U.S. House of Representatives, may have promised federal employment to a primary opponent for the purpose of procuring political support,” the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) said in its report. “If Rep. Newman used her candidacy to promise federal employment, she may have violated federal law, House rules, or standards of conduct.”

The allegations stem from Newman’s 2020 congressional run when she decided to once again challenge incumbent Rep. Dan Lipinski (D-IL) in the party’s primary after losing to him in the previous cycle.

According to a report released on Monday, Newman may have promised a potential primary challenger, Palestinian-American professor Iymen Chehade, a job as her “foreign policy advisor and either District Director or Legislative Director” in a potential future congressional office after the two met in 2018.

Newman told the body that she sought to hire Chehade because of his knowledge on foreign and Arab-American affairs, which she felt was a shortcoming of her 2018 campaign. … The Illinois progressive claims Chehade’s potential 2020 plans did not factor into their discussions, but documents she herself provided to the body seemed to contradict her testimony: in a draft contract attached to an October 2018 email, Chehade says he will not “announce or submit his candidacy” for that district, and that “in exchange” he would be hired as Newman’s chief foreign policy advisor.

According to a signed 2018 contract Rep. Newman agreed to pay Chehade between $135,000 and $140,000.