Gillibrand defends office's handling of aide's sexual harassment complaint

Gillibrand said at the time that Franken's alleged conduct had "shocked and disappointed her" and that he should "step aside" because "enough is enough." But, it emerged on Monday that last summer, an aide in her mid-20’s who was working in Gillibrand’s Senate office also apparently decided that enough was enough, as she resigned in protest over the office’s handling of her sexual-harassment complaint against a senior male adviser to Gillibrand.

“I have offered my resignation because of how poorly the investigation and post-investigation was handled,” the woman, who resigned less than three weeks after reporting the purported harassment, wrote to Gillibrand in a letter obtained by Politico. Gillibrand, responding to the allegations on Monday, said an appropriate investigation was launched -- and her office later said the male staffer had been fired after other unreported, "deeply disturbing" comments surfaced.

Here’s another case of a Democrat saying one thing publicly but doing something different behind the scenes.
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In this case it has everything to do with Democrat hypocrisy over the #metoo movement:

EXCLUSIVE: While Sen. Gillibrand was pressing Congress to change the broken system of handling sexual harassment, a mid-20s female aide to Gillibrand resigned in protest over the handling of her sexual harassment complaint by Gillibrand‘s office. 

— POLITICO Press (@POLITICOPress)

POLITICO – 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.

“I trusted and leaned on this statement that you made: ‘You need to draw a line in the sand and say none of it is O.K. None of it is acceptable.’ Your office chose to go against your public belief that women shouldn’t accept sexual harassment in any form and portrayed my experience as a misinterpretation instead of what it actually was: harassment and ultimately, intimidation,” the woman wrote.

The senator and her staff never responded to the letter.

Of course Senator Gillibrand defended herself to Politico in a statement, suggesting they did everything appropriate in this case. Politico points out that the aide, Abbas Malik, kept his job.
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But that’s not the end of it:

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.

Gillibrand’s office opened a new investigation and dismissed Malik last week. Malik did not respond to requests for comment.

Now that she’s running for president, she acts quickly and swiftly! What a hypocrite.

As Politico continues to point out:

The episode suggests a disconnect between the senator’s categorical public stance and her office’s private actions. It also points to broader problems with sexual harassment investigations on Capitol Hill: They are usually conducted internally by top aides with pre-existing relationships in the office rather than by an independent third party — a structure that Gillibrand has criticized in other institutions such as the military. The system can leave Capitol Hill aides ill-served, since those involved in an investigation have a motivation to protect the lawmaker.

Gillibrand isn’t the only hypocrite in sheep’s clothing. Sheila Jackson Lee was forced to resign last year from leading the Congressional Black Caucus after she fired a staffer who said she was raped by another CBC staffer.
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Also, with this now in focus, remember how Gillibrand came out against Kavanaugh’s nomination after saying his accuser must be believed?

Cake for me and not for thee.