video platformvideo managementvideo solutionsvideo playerPosted on 10/31/2011 2:47:44 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
File that under “Headlines I never thought I’d write.”
Is this really it?
Cain told van Susteren that he remembered one woman who was a writer in the Association’s communications department. “I can’t even remember her name, but I do remember the formal allegation she made in terms of sexual harassment,” Cain said. “I turned it over to my general counsel and one of the ladies that worked for me, the woman in charge of human resources. They did investigate…and it was found to be baseless.”
Van Susteren asked Cain how often he saw the woman. “I might see her in the office because her office was on the same floor as my office,” Cain said. Van Susteren asked whether the woman traveled with Cain, who spent a lot of time on the road speaking to restaurant associations around the country. “No, never,” Cain said…
Van Susteren asked what Cain did that led to the accusation. There were reportedly more than one accusations in the complaint, but Cain said he recalled just one incident. “She was in my office one day, and I made a gesture saying — and I was standing close to her — and I made a gesture saying you are the same height as my wife. And I brought my hand up to my chin saying, ‘My wife comes up to my chin.’” At that point, Cain gestured with his flattened palm near his chin. “And that was put in there [the complaint] as something that made her uncomfortable,” Cain said, “something that was in the sexual harassment charge.”
So that was part of it — an exceedingly lame part of it, if Cain’s memory is accurate — but maybe not all of it. The detail about “the woman in charge of human resources” is interesting too: Politico spoke to her last week and she denied ever having heard of a complaint by a woman employee against Cain. After Cain himself acknowledged today that the complaints had happened, Politico called her back — and she no longer wanted to talk. Very curious.
Ed and Tina have been all over this today but I still have two questions. One: Like Kevin Williamson, I don’t understand how Cain didn’t know at the time if a settlement had been reached or not. I understand why he didn’t have to consent to the settlement — it was the National Restaurant Association that presumably would have been sued, not Cain personally — but if my employer was inclined to pay five figures to someone who’d accused me baselessly of sexual harassment, I’d surely want to know it. Especially if I was thinking about running for office someday, when the settlement would surface and become a rolling clusterfark for the campaign. Two: Why hasn’t anyone revealed the amounts of the settlements yet? Politico said it saw “documentation” describing the allegations and asserted vaguely that the payouts were in “the five-figure range,” but that won’t cut it. The actual numbers matter. The smaller the payouts, the more likely it is that the claims were weak and that the NRA felt comfortable driving a hard bargain. Someone somewhere knows the numbers, whether inside Cain’s campaign, at the NRA, or in Politico’s newsroom. Let’s have ‘em. The man’s credibility is at stake and that’ll be a useful data point.
Here’s a new clip showcasing his best moment at the National Press Club this afternoon, goofing on the Karen Finneys of the world who claim the right’s interest in him is chiefly as an aegis against racism charges. Exit quotation: “This many white people can’t pretend that they like me.”
video platformvideo managementvideo solutionsvideo playerUpdate: Byron York updated the piece I linked above with this key detail:
Cain also offered new information about the settlement of the case. Politico, which broke the sexual harassment allegation story, said that the woman received a money settlement “in the five-figure range.” When van Susteren asked about that, Cain said, “My general counsel said this started out where she and her lawyer were demanding a huge financial settlement…I don’t remember a number…But then he said because there was no basis for this, we ended up settling for what would have been a termination settlement.” When van Susteren asked how much money was involved, Cain said. “Maybe three months’ salary. I don’t remember. It might have been two months. I do remember my general counsel saying we didn’t pay all of the money they demanded.”
“I do remember my general counsel saying we didn’t pay all of the money they demanded” — and yet, this morning he claimed that he “wasn’t even aware” of a settlement. Maybe his campaign staff researched it and briefed him sometime between this morning and the interview with Greta? Or maybe, as a Twitter pal suggests, Cain was playing coy earlier because his lawyers had to double check on what he was legally able to disclose?
He also claims that he’s only aware of one formal complaint even though Politico claims there were two separate accusers. Stay tuned.
Update: An excellent point from Philip Klein. Politico was in touch with his staff for 10 days about this story. If Cain did get briefed this morning about the details of the settlements, why did it take the campaign 10 days to do that? They weren’t blindsided here.
Update: The Times asked a lawyer who specializes in sexual harassment claims whether it’d be unusual for the accused not to know about the settlement. The answer: It wouldn’t be unusual for him not to participate in the settlement, but knowing about it is a whole other matter.
“A prudent general counsel, will say, ‘Look–I want you out of the mix. You should not be involved in this.’” she said. The matter would not have to be taken up with the full board of an organization, and depending on its rules, could be handled by individual board members and officers.
But Mr. Cain’s further contention that he learned nothing more of the matter, she said, “completely defies credulity.” If the organization had, in fact, conducted a “thorough investigation,” as Mr. Cain said, he would have probably picked up a great deal of information from the questions that would have been put to him.
For most executives in this position, she said, it is only natural to inquire after the fact as to the outcome — even if it’s just to say, “Hey, what happened with that, and why are these ladies no longer here?”
Uh, the question was: “I’m still trying to figure out what a verbal gesture might be.
2 posted on Monday, October 31, 2011 2:51:23 PM by Paladin2”
And my answer was: A certain sexual movement of the tongue while speaking. You know, like Obama talks when describing his wife Michael.
I was being sarcastic, guess my tongue in cheek comment could be considered sexual by some.
When I worked at BP America in the 90’s, a charge of sexual harassment was the quickest way for a woman to get promoted “away from the offender”.
It happened a lot.
Can hardly believe people are continuing to make issue of this...it’s the oldest political smear trick in the book for the media to have a scandal....that will keep Obama off the front page.
This is a transparent slander by the Left.
The left? Have you ruled out Romney?
Excellent point - if this were coming from the left they’d wait until he became the nominee. I guess it is possible that the left would release this now to eliminate him so as to keep Romney at the top.
Corporations have lots of lawsuits at any one time. This one was small potatoes. Forgettable.
You, moose, have all the markings of a troll. In 10+ years at this site, to the best of my recollection, I’ve never called any poster by that term. So you are really *special* If you are not a paid Obot, you should apply and at least get paid. You’ve spent a good deal of your FR time trashing both Cain and Palin in the standard Obot passive-aggressive style.
Your comment to which I replied had nothing whatsoever to do with revealing the facts, only Cain’s response: “Nice try but I would have a hard time trusting somebody who doesn’t remember having been sued for sexual harassment to run this country...especially if the accusations were false.”
Having been called naïve as to the real world in which powerful people such as Cain operate, you pull the old hypocrisy card, and change the topic: “If this were obama or clinton or romney or perry you’d be screaming for the facts to be revealed. You know it. We know it.” Who’s this “we” by the way? Pure Obot.
So, your initial comment was about Cain’s memory of events TWENTY (20) years ago, that by your lights he should remember with perfect clarity, but you then change the subject to exposing ‘the facts.’ Your initial comment appears to have conceded the allegations as not true.
If you really cared about truth and the facts, you would be calling for the accusers to step forward and lay out their case, offering Cain a fair and open rebuttal (as I have done over the past 24 hours) but you seem perfectly okay with just letting the anonymous smear sit out there, and finding fault with Cain’s recollection of 20 year old events. Yeah, you are some Christian. Ha!
OK, I consider myself educated in a subject I find despicable and pitful.
A settlement isn’t “minutiae.”
Truth is not in you.
Good, now we’ve established your IQ and character.
Keep spouting.
No, he said he did not know there WAS a settlement, was surprised to learn there was a settlement, and hoped it wasn’t for much.
Now he says he remembers his counsel telling him about the settlement. That would be an odd way of saying it if his counsel told him TODAY. More likely he forgot all about the settlement, but now that he is thinking about it and talking to others, he is slowly remembering things.
Except he had 10 days to do this, so that’s not a good explanation. But it can’t be (as the article speculates) that he was being “coy” this morning — because what he said was clearcut, not coy, and if he really knew this much about the settlement this morning, what he said this morning would have been a lie, and I don’t believe Cain would lie to be coy.
No way Cain is going to argue that he gets sued for harrassment so often he didn’t remember this one.
That would require him to be part of the agreement, so he would be bound by it. No way he was part of the agreement and didn’t remember it.
How could it be a “slander” by either the left or Romney? The complaints were filed in the 1990s. Cain has now admitted that there was at least one complaint, and that the woman worked for the association, and that she was paid a settlement.
So how is reporting that a slander? How would the left have set this up to get the woman to file a false complaint in the 1990s? How would Romney?
The “slander” would have been the woman making the charge, if it was false. Not reporting the charges now. And the problem with “settling” a charge is it’s very hard later when it comes up to argue that the press should IGNORE it.
being an interviewee in a department is a bit different from being president of the organization. And it’s still weird for a person to not care what became of the complaint. I would be too curious to let it drop, and you’d think a guy ambitious enough to be President wouldn’t ignore things like this.
If that makes sense to you then knock yourself out.
To 39 - You’re exactly right about that. If this were Perry they would be champing at the bit. I watched the Cain Q&A with Jenna Lee Monday and in my opinion he handled the queries impeccably. Now I get home after a flight from Dallas and learn there is more to the story. With Jenna Lee, Cain was adamant that he knew nothing of these women, now he later speaks with Greta and gives this recollection of a gal being offended because he compared her height to his wife’s. I still give Cain the benefit of the doubt but for him to go from ‘not recalling’ to later ‘recalling one incident’ makes me want to step back a bit and see how this plays out.
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