As Lena Dunham reminds us, it’s easy to believe all women, until one of them accuses one of your male friends and allies.
During the Kavanaugh circus, Senator Kamala Harris was riding the Believe All Women express and tweeted, #BelieveSurvivors. Now her faith, as Darth Vader would say, is lacking, after it emerged that one of her aides had been accused of sexual harassment.
Sen. Kamala Harris said Thursday that she did not know about the allegations of harassment made against one of her longtime staff members, who resigned Wednesday after The Sacramento Bee inquired about a $400,000 harassment and retaliation settlement resulting from his time working for Harris at the California Department of Justice.
“I did not,” she said on the steps outside the U.S. Capitol. “Nope.”
Larry Wallace, who was the director of the Division of Law Enforcement under then-Attorney General Harris, was accused by his former executive assistant Danielle Hartley in December 2016 of “gender harassment” and other demeaning behavior, including frequently asking her to crawl under his desk to change the paper in his printer.
“It’s something that I take very seriously, and I think we all should,” Harris said. She did not answer whether she believes Hartley but said she has “not talked to her directly.”
It’s not just about Wallace.
Hartley accused the office of retaliation. And if her story is true, then she was abused and intimidated by Kamala Harris’ people.
Despite the settlement, Harris won’t stand by her or offer her an apology. There is absolutely no way that Trump won’t use this in a hypothetical election. Which means that she’s already been wounded. Like Hillary and Dunham, Harris was caught playing the victim card while standing with the perpetrators.
And you can’t do both.
There’s also this curious question.
Harris, who has said she will decide over the holidays whether to run for president in 2020, has been a prominent figure in the #MeToo movement against workplace sexual harassment. Last year, she was among a group of female senators that were the first to call for the resignation of Sen. Al Franken after multiple women accused him of sexual misconduct, and she introduced a bill in June to ban forced nondisclosure agreements in harassment settlements…
As part of the settlement, Hartley resigned her position and agreed not to seek employment with the Department of Justice again. She also agreed to a non-disclosure clause, forbidding her from discussing the settlement amount or alerting the media to the agreement.
Is Harris willing to call for Hartley’s release from that NDA considering that she’s publicly opposed to them? And if she is, why was Hartley forced to sign it?
The person most likely to be hurt by Hartley going to the media was… Kamala Harris.
Wasn’t this an NDA protecting Kamala Harris from the political consequences of her aide’s harassment? And is it really plausible that Harris knew nothing about what was going on in her own office?
Either Kamala Harris is incompetent or was protecting a sexual harasser.
Pick one.
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