🍻 In This Week’s Hill Spill Newsletter: A Scoop on an Alleged Honeypot, a Chameleon Named Meatball, a Floor Speech About Your Pilot and a Situation in the Cannon Tunnel

🍹 Welcome to this week’s Hill Spill, Capitol Hill’s favorite Thirsty Thursday newsletter! It’s Thursday and we come bearing scoops!

This week we’ve got an alleged honeypot at a Brussels codel dinner, plus our sources’ hot takes on the Times dump on Mary Peltola’s office — shoving, slurs and a chameleon named Meatball. Tommy Tuberville took the Senate floor to talk about your pilot, someone left something unmentionable on the Cannon tunnel floor next to the student art and it’s Fat Bear Week, the one election we are emotionally prepared for.

Pour yourself something strong and let’s get into it. 🍸

SCOOP: Days before Russia invaded Ukraine, Rep. Jim Costa (D-Calif.) brought an unexpected guest to a dinner with the US delegation and some European colleagues in Brussels on a Congressional Delegation (CODEL) in 2022. According to multiple sources familiar with the trip, speaking on condition of anonymity, some of Rep. Costa’s colleagues on the congressional trip were worried the attractive young woman on his arm may have been a Russian honeypot. 

The CODEL trip was to Belgium between February 18 and 24, right ahead of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, related to a NATO Parliamentary Assembly meeting in Brussels, Belgium.

According to one source, Costa excused the woman’s presence at a CODEL dinner by telling the group he “already knew the woman” and that she happened to be in Brussels at the time. The source called that explanation "complete bullshit" and told us Costa brought her to the hotel where the dinner was held.

Two sources familiar with the exchange said she indicated to the group she was Polish, but another individual on the trip who speaks Polish tried talking with her, and she didn't appear to understand him.  A third source present for the dinner but not for the exchange confirmed some of the core details from later discussion with his colleagues: that the woman could not speak the native language of her purported nationality, but indicated the woman was Ukrainian and could not speak Ukrainian, rather than being Polish and unable to speak Polish.

"It became blatantly obvious that she was probably a Russian asset," one source said.

A second individual, who was there, confirmed the anonymous lady’s inability to understand Polish, despite her claimed nationality. That person told us  "I can't confirm what she was," when asked if they believe she was a honeypot.

Costa disputes the account and says the guest was Ukrainian. 

"These claims are baseless. We are talking about hearsay surrounding a dinner that took place four years ago, involving a Ukrainian guest who had permission from the CODEL chair to attend. In the four years since, not one of my colleagues on that CODEL raised these supposed concerns with me," he told us in a statement. "If my colleagues believed there was a concern, they had an obligation to raise it through the appropriate channels at the time. They did not."

The delegation was led by Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.), who died in May 2025.

We have been unable to independently establish the identity of the woman, which Costa was unwilling to provide. 

It isn't the first time questions have been raised about Costa's conduct with young women. In May, The Washington Sun reported that House ethics officials investigated Costa over allegations that he made inappropriate advances to two congressional interns. The complaint was filed in early 2023 by a former House Democratic staffer who said Costa behaved inappropriately with her in February 2020, when she was a 22-year-old intern for another lawmaker. She also reported witnessing Costa act inappropriately with another female intern in December 2021, two months before the Brussels trip.

The case was dismissed and Costa has denied any wrongdoing. A Costa spokesperson told The Washington Sun the Office of Congressional Conduct recommended dismissal and the Ethics Committee voted unanimously to dismiss the matter.

The California Democrat also came under fire in 1986, when he was a state assemblyman. The Los Angeles Times reported that he apologized after offering to pay a woman for sex. She was wearing a police wire, and a 19-year-old sex worker was with him at the time.

Costa, 74, has represented the Central Valley in Congress since 2005. He has never lost a general election.

The New York Times dropped a banger on Mary Peltola this week. Nine former staffers, a shove, slurs, profane texts and a chameleon named Meatball. Democrats we talked to weren’t particularly concerned, and some think it could actually help her in Alaska.

“If that New York Times story does swing the Alaska Senate race it will be toward Peltola,” one Dem operative told us.

A Democratic senator told us the aides who spoke to the Times sounded a little whiny: “Dem staff need to toughen up or get out of politics.”

Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) told Semafor that when he was 25, he had a really bad boss. “He made me run across an open f***ing field of raking machine gun fire to breach a door. So, yeah, life’s tough sometimes.”

Former Rep. Max Rose (D-N.Y.) took to X to express his support, posting: “Peltola for President.”

This story has a lot of lore. Former aides told the Times she shoved a male aide in the chest in 2024 because she couldn’t find a memo. Four said they heard her use a homophobic slur over the years, which the campaign denies.

There are texts where she uses the r-word, which the campaign says she regrets. After Planned Parenthood dinged her over a defense bill vote, texts reviewed by the Times have her writing of a local board member, “I hope she dies of a botched abortion.” PP sat this one out.

Then there’s Meatball (we aren’t really lizard people, but objectively a great name), her daughter’s chameleon. Aides were reportedly sent to the pet store for live crickets to feed him. Meatball eventually moved into her Capitol Hill office and at one point the crickets got loose and staffers were chasing them around with manila folders and paper cups. Amy Klobuchar eating a salad with a comb walked so Mary Peltola’s office could sprint—mostly away from loose crickets and missing memos.

Things blew up days before the August primary, per the report. Peltola lost it over campaign signs (“OUR SIGN GAME IS F***ED”), called the DSCC, a new consultant flew in and then Elias Law Group started telling longtime aides they were out. Her campaign manager got fired, her chief of staff got demoted.

Her campaign says the Times took the worst stretch of her life (losing her mother and her husband Eugene, who died in a plane crash, within a few months in 2023) and turned it into a pattern. They say the shove was an accidental bump on what would’ve been her late husband’s birthday. Several former aides defended her, with one calling her “awesome and demanding.”

Republicans have publicly argued it’s disqualifying. Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) told CNN the report was “sad and very disturbing.”

“Alaskans deserve better than someone who wishes they would die of a botched abortion and spends more time feeding their pet reptile than doing her actual job. Peltola only cares about herself and continues to put Alaska last,” NRSC Regional Press Secretary Nick Puglia told us.

Another GOP operative wasn’t sold that it matters much. They told us they don’t see it moving the needle with voters, though it could turn off some donors. They also said Republicans will probably milk the chameleon jokes to get people looking at her record, which wouldn’t have happened otherwise.

I guess we’ll see how it ultimately plays in the Last Frontier.

Washington Sun reporter Kadia Goba stopped by the pod this week. She's one of our favorite people to gossip with in the hallways, so you know it’s a fun one.

Kadia went from the fashion world to covering New York politics to getting recruited to D.C. in 2019 to cover Congress.

We get into Dem leadership races, why she thinks Jeffries, Clark and Aguilar are safe and why Jim Clyburn wouldn't say he's confident Democrats take back the House. She also tells us about the "impeachment angel" story people still bring up to her and the prominent Democrat who's told her to lose her number three times. Plus, her pick for the Hill's most underrated dresser!

Pour yourself a bev and check it out! 🍸

Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), the Republican nominee for Alabama governor, warned on the Senate floor this week that furries are in the cockpit.

He told the chamber that “many airline pilots, flight attendants, and air traffic controllers are part of the furry community,” and said it’s possible your pilot has a “deranged fetish of dressing up like an animal.”

The line came in the middle of a roughly 20-minute speech arguing that gender dysphoria is a mental illness the country is affirming instead of treating. Tuberville won’t use the word transgender because he says it implies a person can change sex. He calls it “gender confusion,” ties it to violence, and says the U.S. should “bring back mental institutions as a normal part of our society.”

The furries were where those arguments overlapped for him. He says a large share of that community identifies as trans or gender-diverse, and that a costume-and-identity culture in the cockpit is a fitness issue, not a punchline.

A spokesperson listed news stories about furries in the airline industry, pilots at DCA barking and meowing at each other over the radio while on duty, an “Aviation Furs Meet-up” at Furry Migration in Minneapolis and research showing more than 25 percent of the furry community identifies as transgender.

His office also pointed to ALFA, a site styled like a union that says it represents furries across aviation. The site itself says it’s a fan project with no ties to any company or union.

When TMZ asked how many furries we’re actually talking about, Tuberville said there was “obviously probably not a whole lot of them.”

Some sources told us they weren’t especially concerned about pilots’ hobbies, furry or otherwise, as long as they can fly the plane. Fatigue and staffing still rank higher on their list than fursuits.

His Democratic opponent for governor, former Sen. Doug Jones, didn’t engage with the medical argument. He called it “the strangest speech on the floor of the United States Senate I have ever heard,” and “absolutely unbecoming of a United States senator.”

Then he cracked a joke on X: a photo of Tuberville with Aubie, Auburn’s tiger mascot. Jones has mostly run on Medicaid and data centers.

Alabama trans advocates pushed back on the premise. Tris Wilson of the Alabama Trans Rights Coalition told AL.com the comments were a culture-war distraction from the state’s real problems.

“Tuberville may not like the word ‘transgender,’ but science and medicine affirm the existence of a spectrum of gender that includes cisgender and transgender people alike,” Wilson said. “We just want to be free to participate in society like everyone else.”

Tuberville isn’t walking any of it back. The next morning he posted that “deranged Democrats” didn’t like him calling out “insane FURRY CULTURE,” then pointed to the Minneapolis meetup and asked if you’d want a “mentally ill furry” flying your plane.

It’s a rematch of their 2020 Senate race, when Tuberville beat Jones by 20 points. A recent poll has Tuberville up 49 to 41 with 11 percent undecided. Still a lead, but the closest it’s been. Election Day is Nov. 3.

Anywhoo, next time your flight attendant says “paws” instead of “pause,” we guess you’ll know who to call? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

One of our amazing sources — we appreciate you, always — flagged that someone lost a thong in Cannon this week, in the basement tunnel not far from the high school Congressional Art Competition winners.

We were home sick when the email landed and it was the first good thing all day. We put it on X. You all had thoughts.

Thank you to the readers who understand the assignment: if it is unhinged and within sight of a member elevator, plz send here first. Never stop. We loveee it.

A lot of the replies reminded us that one of our favorite shows, The West Wing (we love anything with a young Rob Lowe), already ran a PSA for this exact situation. In Season 2, Episode 11, "The Leadership Breakfast," Donna Moss wears the same pants two days in a row, and the previous day's underwear slides out of the leg onto the floor in front of a columnist. Consider this your reminder to check your pant leg.

Your theories ran the gamut, from a gym bag to the spare-clothes stash under someone's desk. We're going with gym bag. Nothing on this campus really shocks us anymore. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Somewhere this week, someone walked into a meeting with less support than they started the day with. Leadership can relate. We hope it's been reunited with its rightful owner. Donna would have wanted that.

It’s Fat Bear Week, which is the one election this newsroom takes seriously. We love an overweight animal.

The bears in Provincetown and Fire Island may be on Ozempic, per the New York Times. The bears at Katmai did not get the memo. They have spent all summer at Brooks Falls standing in a river with their mouths open while salmon fling themselves in like interns with a briefing. No meal prep. No macros. No GLP-1. Just vibes, protein, and a complete refusal to caucus with Big Pharma.

Then the internet votes on who got the chunkiest. It is a bracket. Turnout is high. There are no discharge petitions. Nobody is alleging fraud. It is, at present, the most functional election in America.

So we’re making a bear with me, honey for the candidate who has not missed a meal since May. Relatable if you have ever lived on vending-machine Cheez-Its through a late-night vote-a-rama and called it strategy.

Shake with ice, strain into a rocks glass over a big cube, add the twist. Have two. Bulk up. Hibernation is coming, and so is Nov. 3. 🐻