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Under fmr. AG Kamala Harris, California paid out over $1.1 million in sexual harassment settlement money

March 2, 2019 | | Print Article

 

(FILE PHOTO video screenshot)

During Democrat presidential candidate and proud feminist Sen. Kamala Harris’s tenure as the attorney general of California, the state’s Justice Department paid out over $1.1 million in settlements to employees who had suffered sexual harassment or workplace retaliation at the hands of their DOJ coworkers.

This startling transfer of funds was uncovered via a California Public Records Act request filed by the Los Angeles Times.

“The incidents included allegations that DOJ employees sexually harassed and retaliated against co-workers, including claims involving inappropriate touching and cases in which workers felt uncomfortable with the comments and actions of others,” the Times reported Friday.

What’s amazing about these findings is that the senator claims she didn’t even know about them until the Times brought them up to her this week. Harris has nevertheless purported to take responsibility for the sexual harassment and intimidation suffered by her former employees.

“As the chief executive of a department of nearly 5,000 employees, the buck stopped with me,” she said in a statement. “No one should face harassment or intimidation in the workplace, and victims of sexual misconduct should be listened to, believed and protected.”

Yet her Twitter profile contains no mentions of the Times’ story. It does, however, contain a brief virtue-signaling statement about Women’s History Month:

In her statement to the Times, the Democrat presidential candidate added that if any sexual harassment allegations surface in her presidential campaign, she’ll take a hands-on approach to them.

“In my Senate office, if a harassment complaint is made, it immediately comes to me. No office is immune to misconduct, and there is much more work to do to ensure all are protected.”

Is it really true though that she never knew about the allegations in her CA DOJ office?

One of the cases involved a $400,000 payment made to a woman, Danielle Hartley, who’d sued in 2016 alleging that she’d been “harassed and demeaned” by Larry Wallace, the then-director of the CA DOJ’s Division of Law Enforcement, and a 14-year+ friend of Harris.

The suit “included an allegation that he placed his office printer on the floor under his desk and ordered Hartley to replace the paper or ink frequently, forcing her to get down on her knees while wearing dresses and skirts,” according to the Times.

By the time the suit was settled in 2017, Wallace was working as an aide at then-Sen. Harris’s Sacramento office. He remained at that position up until just three months ago, when he voluntarily resigned from his post after The Sacramento Bee brought the settlement to the public’s attention.

Why didn’t Harris fire him? Better yet, why did she allow him to remain on staff after the settlement?

“We were unaware of this issue and take accusations of harassment extremely seriously,” her rep said to the media at the time. “Mr. Wallace offered his resignation to the senator, and she accepted it.”

Few people appear to believe her:

What’s notable is that when Harris’s successor and ally, current California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, signed off on the settlement in 2017, he appeared to blame Hartley for her misfortune.

“[The department took] reasonable steps to prevent and correct workplace harassment,” he wrote. “[Hartley] unreasonably failed to utilize the procedures during the period of time and after the alleged harassment or discrimination was occurring. Had Plaintiff taken reasonable effort to utilize these procedures, Plaintiff’s alleged harm, injury or damages would have been avoided.”

HERE’S WHAT YOU’RE MISSING …

Yet Harris, who celebrated Becerra’s appointment as the state’s AG, continues to praise him.

“California’s own Attorney General @XavierBecerra is a tireless voice for justice and has stood up for our values every single day since this president took office. His Spanish-language State of the Union response tomorrow will be a strong message for progress and our future,” she tweeted just last month.

It’s unclear how allying with a victim-blamer (not to mention an alleged sexual harasser) aligns with her celebration of Women’s History Month. It does certainly speak to her noted hypocrisy.

Last year she impugned the character of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh over spurious and since-debunked allegations of sexual harassment. And yet here she is now …

HERE’S WHAT YOU’RE MISSING …

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Vivek Saxena
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