Rep. Katie Hill (D., Calif.) officially announced her resignation from Congress Thursday afternoon on the House floor.
Hill resigned from office following the revelation that she carried out affairs with male and female staffers. Despite the accusation that she abused her position of power to seduce her underlings, Hill said she was motivated by defending women.
"Today as my final act, I voted to move forward with the impeachment of Donald Trump on behalf of the women of the United States of America. We will not stand down. We will not be broken. We will not be silenced. We will rise and we will make tomorrow better than today," Hill said.
Hill said the scandal resulted from a double standard against women in power. She also said that her appearance on the floor was the first time she left her apartment since the scandal broke due to fear for her safety.
"I, like so many of my colleagues, ran for office because I believed that our political system was broken, controlled by the powerful and the wealthy, ignoring and failing the regular people that it's supposed to serve," she said.
"I came here to give a voice to the unheard in the halls of power. I wanted to show young people, queer people, working people, imperfect people that they belong here, because this is the people's house. I fell short of that, and I'm sorry."
Hill also protested Trump's continued presence in office and said a potential ethics investigation would distract from the impeachment inquiry. She compared her scandal to the accusations of sexual misconduct lodged against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Federal and media investigations have failed to substantiate the allegations against Kavanaugh, while Hill has confirmed that she did engage in an affair with a member of her campaign.
"I'm leaving, but we have men who have been credibly accused of intentional acts of sexual violence and remain in board rooms, on the Supreme Court, in this very body, and worst of all, in the oval office," she said.
The first-term congresswoman became engulfed in a "throuple" scandal after leaked nude photos were published by Red State, a conservative online news outlet. Hill, who is openly bisexual, claimed the publication of the photos was an example of revenge porn, and said she would resign at the end of the week.
After the scandal broke, the House Ethics Committee announced it would investigate Hill's conduct and allegations that she had a sexual relationship with a congressional staffer. She denied having an affair with the congressional staffer, but admitted to having an affair with a campaign staffer, photos of whom were published. Hill is in the midst of divorce proceedings with her husband, whom she blamed for leaking the photos.