A former aide of Kirsten Gillibrand has alleged that she did nothing about a senior aide harassing her:
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), one of the most outspoken advocates of the #MeToo movement who has made fighting sexual misconduct a centerpiece of her presidential campaign, spent last summer pressing legislators to update Congress’ “broken” system of handling sexual harassment.
At the same time, a mid-20s female aide to Gillibrand resigned in protest over the handling of her sexual harassment complaint by Gillibrand‘s office, and criticized the senator for failing to abide by her own public standards.
In July, the female staffer alleged one of Gillibrand’s closest aides — who was a decade her senior and married — repeatedly made unwelcome advances after the senator had told him he would be promoted to a supervisory role over her. She also said the male aide regularly made crude, misogynistic remarks in the office about his female colleagues and potential female hires.
Less than three weeks after reporting the alleged harassment and subsequently claiming that the man retaliated against her for doing so, the woman told chief of staff Jess Fassler that she was resigning because of the office’s handling of the matter. She did not have another job lined up.
The woman was granted anonymity because she fears retaliation and damage to her future professional prospects.
“I have offered my resignation because of how poorly the investigation and post-investigation was handled,” the woman wrote to Gillibrand in a letter sent on her final day to the senator’s personal email account. Copied were general counsel Keith Castaldo and Fassler, who is now managing the senator’s presidential bid.
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Gillibrand, who was not made available for an interview, issued a statement to POLITICO defending her office’s handling of the incident.
“These are challenges that affect all of our nation’s workplaces, including mine, and the question is whether or not they are taken seriously. As I have long said, when allegations are made in the workplace, we must believe women so that serious investigations can actually take place, we can learn the facts, and there can be appropriate accountability,” she said. “That’s exactly what happened at every step of this case last year. I told her that we loved her at the time and the same is true today.”
Her office said no one responded to the letter because it determined that “engaging again on an already settled personnel matter was not the appropriate course of action.” It said the letter came after she’d given three weeks’ notice, “contained clear inaccuracies and was a major departure from the sentiments she shared with senior staff in her final days in the office.”
Since she left last summer, the woman has been doing part-time contract work. The male aide, Abbas Malik, kept his job.
Two weeks ago, however, POLITICO presented the office with its own findings of additional allegations of inappropriate workplace conduct by Malik. Among the claims were that he made a “joke” about rape to a female colleague — a person whom the office had failed to contact last summer despite repeated urgings by Malik’s accuser to reach out to the person.
It’s not enough to talk the talk, you need to walk the walk.
I have no doubt that Gillibrand is sincere in her publicly stated positions on this issue, but her, and her office’s, response to this.
Even now, being presented with additional evidence from POLITICO, the response is dismissive.
I understand how difficult it is for someone to deal with allegations when it involves a valued employee, but this is her signature issue, so I expect that there will be significant consequences to her campaign.
She needs to address this, and maybe spend less time at fund raisers with big pharma executives.
