In April 2018, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand urged Senate leaders to pass her bipartisan Congressional Harassment Reform Act. “Congress has a sexual harassment problem — and isn’t taking it seriously,” Gillibrand wrote in Fortune magazine. “If we can’t clean up our own act, how can anyone expect Congress to do the right thing for victims and survivors in the rest of the country? Congress has to do better. I believe that elected officials should be held to the highest ethical standard — not the lowest.”
Just a few months later, when a woman in her own office reported that a married male staffer was making repeated, unwanted and increasingly aggressive sexual advances toward her, Gillibrand did not do the right thing and fire him.
Politico reported that “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.”
GILLIBRAND, CHAMPION OF #METOO MOVEMENT, SAW AIDE RESIGN IN PROTEST OVER SEXUAL HARASSMENT CASE
Gillibrand’s office defended her inaction, saying in a statement that the senator’s office had conducted a “full and thorough investigation” that included “multiple interviews with relevant current employees who could potentially corroborate the claims” but did not find cause to fire the male staffer.
They could not “corroborate” her claims? Gillibrand was willing to destroy Brett Kavanaugh’s career, and derail his Supreme Court nomination over uncorroborated allegations, but when a female employee alleged that she was sexually harassed by one of Gillibrand’s closest aides, the senator hid behind a supposed lack of corroboration.
Why was her office unable to corroborate the allegations? Maybe it’s because they never contacted two former employees the woman said could confirm her story. – READ MORE