(Flashback) Secretive, Taxpayer-Financed Fund Used by Lawmakers Accused of Sexual Harassment

The account has paid out $17 million in the past 10 years, public records show, although it is not clear how much of that was for cases of sexual harassment.

“Right now, it’s very unclear to the taxpayer where this money is going,” Grace Morgan, director of external affairs for the Washington-based Taxpayers Protection Alliance, told The Daily Signal in a phone interview.

“We don’t know who is getting paid the settlements and why they are getting paid the settlements,” Morgan said Monday. “The $17 million figure does not distinguish between sexual harassment claims and other general workplace claims. There is no information and no transparency.”

The spotlight fell on the question of sexual harassment on Capitol Hill after the scandal that brought down Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein prompted dozens of women, and men, to blow the whistle on the sexually predatory practices of major business, entertainment, and media figures ranging from actor Kevin Spacey to news anchor Charlie Rose.

Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., the longest-serving member of Congress, has been accused of sexual harassment by two former staffers. Several women, although none of them staffers, also accuse Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., of groping them.

ALCEE HASTINGS ASKED A STAFFER WHAT KIND OF PANTIES SHE WAS WEARING

https://media4.s-nbcnews.com/j/newscms/2017_50/2261546/171214-winsome-packer-mn-1325_692e1066b4a2af2c214ff9ca193327b7.nbcnews-ux-320-320.jpg

Hastings Record sexual harassment settlement exposes byzantine congressional process / by LEIGH ANN CALDWELL / NBC NEWS

WASHINGTON — With new harassment accusations being revealed on a nearly daily basis in Congress, documents obtained by NBC News from the Hastings case shed light on how taxpayer money ends up being used to essentially sweep such incidents under a bureaucratic rug with little accountability.

On Capitol Hill, a sexual harassment complaint is a long process. The documents include drafts of a letter approving the settlement and a confidentiality agreement as well as an internal “lessons learned” memo written by a House employment lawyer. And while many of the accusations and details of the case remain in dispute, the eventual settlement is a case study of a process shrouded in secrecy despite being funded by taxpayers.

In 2011, Winsome Packer, a congressional staffer who worked for the United States Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (known as the Helsinki Commission) filed a complaint against the commission, alleging that its chairman at the time, Rep. Alcee Hastings, D-Fla., made unwanted sexual advances toward her and that she was threatened with retaliation.

The details of Packer’s specific allegations are recorded in the complaint she also brought in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Publicly filed court documents in that lawsuit show that Packer alleged that she “was forced to endure” repeated “unwelcome sexual advances, crude sexual comments and unwelcome touching” by Hastings. In describing the incidents, Packer alleged that Hastings had hugged her multiple times, sometimes in front of witnesses at public events, pressing his whole body against her, and his face to her face. Packer also claimed that after she complained to the commission’s staff director, she was subject to threats of retaliation by both the director and Hastings himself, including “threats of termination.”
Hastings, who has been in Congress since 1993, has denied Packer’s allegations. He called them “malicious” and “absolutely false” in a letter obtained by NBC News.

The Office of Congressional Ethics referred the matter to the House Ethics Committee in 2010. After reviewing more than one thousand pages of documents and interviewing eight witnesses, the committee closed the case after finding that while the congressman admitted to having made some unprofessional comments, it had found “no additional evidence supporting [Packer’s ] allegations.”

The federal court also dismissed the case, with prejudice, in June 2014. Both sides maintain they were wronged. But this case, which took four years to settle, shows the system is so flawed that even Hastings’ House-provided attorney issued a retrospective critical of the process. In an internal congressional document obtained by NBC News this week, Gloria Lett, an attorney for the Office of House Employment Counsel, offered some “lessons learned” from Packer’s case that recommended the adoption of new policies to handle such claims.

The Settlement So how did Winsome Packer end up getting a $220,000 taxpayer-funded settlement in May 2014? And why was that payment, settling sexual harassment claims against a member of the House of Representatives, not included in a disclosure to the House Administration Committee of all such settlement payments in the last five years, provided by Congress’ Office of Compliance, the congressional office that approved the payment?

The puzzle of a byzantine process starts with what Packer says happened when she first made the complaint. Packer claims that from the outset she faced a system that was onerous and intimidating. In an interview, she told NBC News that the process “is designed to totally demolish you and convince you to drop it.” At the beginning, like any accuser who files a complaint with the Office of Compliance (OOC), Packer paid for her own legal representation while it’s the taxpayers who provide free legal counsel for the member of Congress or the office involved in the complaint.

Packer completed an initial requirement of a 30-days-or-less, mandatory counseling period for accusers, and then proceeded to a second requirement of a 30-day mediation period. She called that process “worse than the harassment.” She and one of her lawyers describe an attempt to undermine her credibility and intimidate her. George Chuzi, who represented Packer in her first meeting regarding the complaint, said the House lawyers were “unbelievably aggressive.”

Two government-paid lawyers representing Hastings sat across the table, as did her immediate supervisor. According to Packer and Chuzi, among the first things the House counsel said is that Packer is a “liar and an extortionist.” Packer added that the House attorneys also made an initial demand: Packer had to quit. Chuzi said he was “in shock” about the treatment of the accuser. Packer continued to press her case in federal court for three years.

How Congress is trying to expose sexual harassment payouts Packer eventually received a settlement payment of $220,000, an amount confirmed by documents reviewed by NBC News and the largest known about since the Congressional Accountability Act was passed in 1995. One document obtained by NBC News details early draft terms of Packer’s settlement, and it is one of few such documents that have become public.

The others have not been released because confidentiality requirements, established by Congress and signed into federal law as the Congressional Accountability Act, bind accuser, accused and other legal entities from disclosing any terms or details.

Despite these confidentiality requirements, Packer said she had decided to speak out because the environment has changed for accusers and she has little to lose. Packer, 60, who worked for the commission from 2007 until 2014, said she has not worked since the settlement was reached nearly four years ago, and is now living with her sister in Florida.
Prior to her work as a policy adviser to the Helsinki Commission, Packer worked as a GOP staff member on the House Homeland Security Committee from 2003 through 2006.

But when NBC News directed questions about the settlement and the payment to the two congressional entities the documents showed were involved in establishing and approving them — the Office of Compliance and the Senate Office of the Chief Counsel for Employment — neither provided answers.
In an email, the Office of Compliance’s media representative wrote that “the Congressional Accountability Act requires that the OOC maintain the confidentially of contacts made with the office. The OOC cannot comment on whether matters have or have not been filed with the office.”

The Senate legal office did not respond to questions — including why it reached a settlement in this case even though Hastings is a member of the House.

In the “lessons” memo written by Lett, the counsel representing Hastings’ side, she argued that “the manner in which the case was resolved was not ideal, and, going forward, we strongly recommend that the commission consider adopting regulations or policies to avoid this type of situation.” According to Lett’s memo, Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., who succeeded Hastings as chairman of the Helsinki Commission in 2011, did not favor moving forward with the settlement. Hastings sent letters to Smith and Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., who was the ranking member of the commission at the time, in 2012, saying, “I strongly oppose any settlement with Ms. Packer that would involve her receiving any money or things of value,” calling her allegations “absolutely false.”

According to the “lessons” memo, Packer contacted the Senate Chief Counsel for Employment’s office and “indicated her interest in settling the case.” A draft confidentiality agreement between Packer and the commission, obtained by NBC News, forced Packer to resign in order to accept the settlement. She also had to agree to never seek employment with the commission again.

The agreement was also made with the commission, not Hastings, and required commission employees to attend a sexual harassment training session. Hastings was not required to attend. According to the settlement, the commission’s harassment politics also had to be redrafted and distributed them at the seminar.

The Senate office didn’t communicate with the House office that first opened the case on the terms and details of the settlement, according to Lett’s “lessons” memo. Other than a conversation between Hastings and Cardin in 2014 that a settlement had been reached, Hastings was never provided any details of the settlement until it was reported in the press last week. “Until (last Friday) evening, I had not seen the settlement agreement between the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) and Ms. Packer,” Hastings said. “At no time was I consulted, nor did I know until after the fact that such a settlement was made.”

The Senate Waited Until Christmas To Reveal How Many Harassment Settlements Were Paid Out
Daily Caller | 12/25/2017 | Kevin Daley
FR Posted on 12/25/2017 by ding_dong_daddy_from_dumas

GOP Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama, who chairs the Rules Committee, said further particulars cannot be made public, in order to respect the confidentiality afforded to victims.“While the Rules Committee has been eager to provide this information in a transparent manner, it has been our priority to protect the victims involved in these settlements from further harm,” the senator said in a statement attending the report. (Excerpt) Read more at dailycaller.com ...

In a grandiose show of his “impending knighthood,” Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Alabama), Rules Committee chair, graciously said that “further particulars cannot be made public, in order to respect the confidentiality afforded to victims of sex harassment by members.”

MEMO TO SHELBY: you, sir, know dam well. Americans do not want the names of the victims.

Americans DEMAND to know the names of the elected sex harrassers and tax dollars they extorted to silence their victims.

AMERICANS DEMAND TO KNOW THE SCOPE AND DIMENSION OF TAX DOLLARS EXTORTED FOR THESE ITEMS:

<><> tax-paid hush money disguised as bonuses
<><> tax-paid severances
<><> no-show jobs to silence victims
<><> tax-paid legal assistance
<><> payouts from the Office of Compliance
<><> payouts from tax-paid office budgets
<><> all other forms of tax-paid bribery
<><> all other forms of tax-paid hush money.

ACTION NOW-——Call President Trump:
Comments: 202-456-1111 Switchboard: 202-456-1414

CONTACT CONGRESS: Capitol Switchboard 1-866-220-0044

U.S. Department of Justice
Comment Line: 202-353-1555
Switchboard: 202-514-2000

Cong Green failed to differentiate his sexual mess from Clinton's.

THE GREEN TALE---BEFORE AND AFTER

BEFORE Congressman Slept With And Then Sued Allegedly Drug-Addicted Staffer / BY LUKE ROSIAK
SOURCE http://dailycaller.com/2017/11/27/congressman-slept-with-and-then-sued-allegedly-drug-addicted-staffer/

Texas Democrat Rep. Al Green had sex with a staffer who he said was a drug addict and then sued her when she threatened to go public with claims she suffered a hostile work environment, saying he “will not be extorted or blackmailed.”

Lucinda Daniels, his onetime district director, claimed she suffered a hostile work environment, claimed sexual harassment and demanded $1.8 million. Green sued her, saying she was using their sexual relationship to shake him down at the behest of other unnamed conspirators.

“Daniels has threatened to go public with her complaints if the Congressman does not per her money. Green has done nothing wrong and refuses to pay ‘hush money’ just for political expediency. Green will not be extorted or blackmailed by Daniels. He will not be the victim of a shakedown by Daniels and her agents. Green demands vindication of his actions and now sues Daniels for declaratory judgment relief relating to her workplace allegations and her quest for money,” documents Green filed in federal court in 2008 say. Daniels claimed Greene retaliated against her in the workplace because of her gender and because she refused additional romantic requests.” Green rejected her claims as false.

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AFTER--Dem Congressman Al Green Sends Preemptive Press Release Denying Sexual Assault Allegation
freebeacon ^ | November 27, 2017 | Alex Griswold
FR Posted on 11/28/2017, 6:59:28 AM by MarvinStinson

Texas Democrat Congressman Al Green sent an out-of-the-blue press release Monday acknowledging the existence of a previous sexual assault allegation against him, but denying it ever happened. Green sent an unprompted joint statement to Washington Post reporter Mike DeBonis signed by himself and Green’s former district director, Lucinda Daniels, denying anything untoward happened between the two.

“In the present climate, we wish to jointly quiet any curious minds about our former and present relationship with one another. We are friends, and have long been friends,” they wrote.

Greene Spox: “The attached statement is in reference to a circumstance that occurred in 2008. This circumstance did not involve the Cong. Office, nor the Office of Employment Counsel & did not involve the use of any taxpayer money.” 3:04 PM - Nov 27, 2017

“At an unfortunate time in our lives, when both of our feelings were hurt, we hastily made allegations and charges against one another that have been absolutely resolved. As consenting friends, we both regret our former claims and have since then maintained a respectful friendship,” the statement continued.

“We are friends,” they added for good measure.

“The attached statement is in reference to a circumstance that occurred in 2008,” a Green spokesman told DeBonis. “This circumstance did not involve the Congressional Office, nor the Office of Employment Counsel and did not involve the use of any taxpayer money.”

In 2008, Daniels publicly accused Green of forcing her to have sex with him. Green retaliated with a lawsuit maintaining the sex was consensual and claiming she threatened to sue him for workplace discrimination unless he paid her.

Eventually, both parties dropped their accusations against each other and issued a joint statement similar to Monday’s. “Congressman Alexander Green and Lucinda Daniels have both resolved and settled their respective disputes without payment, promise or receipt of any money. They regret any circumstances that created th

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Congressman Al Green currently serves on the
<><>Financial Services Committee.

And on three financial subcommittees:
<><>Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit,
<><> Monetary https://hotair.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/green-al.jpgPolicy and Trade,
<><> Oversight and Investigations, as a Ranking Member,

And is Assistant Whip of the Democratic Party.

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