The problem with your scenario is that the woman made a complaint and the NRA paid her to go away. If she had not said a word and brought it up now like one the so called ‘victims’ is doing, I would agree with you.
Sometimes it’s better/cheaper/easier to simply pay the extortionists to go away.
There’s no direct evidence in this piece that this woman actually made a complaint, or that it was investigated, or that she was terminated over it.
All that’s in this story is that these people claim the woman told them (or others and they heard about it) about an incident. And that some people didn’t believe her.
That’s it.
We have no information on which to conclude that she actually made a formal complaint based on that allegation. The article doesn’t directly say she did, and it mentions something like it would have been an ordeal for her to do so and “who would be believed, a CEO or mid-level staffer?”
So, if anything, there’s some indication that the woman in fact never made a formal complaint, she just jawboned about the alleged incident to her co-workers.
Then, the author tells us, that, out of the blue, several days later, the woman is seen “returning to the workplace” — from where? — I guess we have to assume for the moment (since this “journalist” did such a crap job) that she was returning from a meeting with her supervisor or HR. They said she was distraught.
Nothing in this crap article even begins to try to connect that with the allegation she made, so far as we know, only to her co-workers, much less with her having filed a formal complaint (which, again, is never mentioned in the article).
For all this article tells us, she could have been called in to HR and given a pink slip for some completely unrelated reason. After which of course she would be distraught.
And, if she thought she had any legal grounds for overturning her termination — (sounds to me if you try to legally fight your termination, it is not voluntary, it is “for cause,” which is not good at all) — she’d look into that, as would her parents, who would understand the impact on her employment history of being terminated for cause.
Look. When, out of the blue, you come back from HR “distraught” and then you are gone shortly thereafter — um, isn’t it more likely that what happened was that you got FIRED rather than that you made a sexual harassment complaint, it was investigated and found unsubstantiated (in less than a week), and thereafter you took a VOLUNTARY settlement (rather than taking your case to court)?
The previous woman had expressed to co-workers that she was very unhappy at the NRA. She would not have come back crying from HR when she was offered a shut-up and get-out termination with the usual one year’s severance pay.
Bottom line: there’s zero evidence here that the woman ratted out in this story even ever made a formal complaint or took a voluntary termination.
Rather, if one wanted to go on innuendo, it would be more likely that she just got fired for some reason and, while she considered fighting it, ultimately she didn’t have a case or otherwise decided not to.
BTW, Politico also buried in one of its stories (need to find the link) that the HR director at the time was recently interviewed and she said she was unfamiliar with ANY complaints having been filed against Herman Cain. That shows you just how inconsequential it was!
Also the fact that lawyer phoned it in and never even went to the office or met with the women who did file a complaint — he couldn’t even remember who the complaint had been made against. Again, business-as-usual.
Here’s the link I mentioned in my last post, where the HR director at the time says she wasn’t aware of any complaints having been filed against Herman Cain:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1011/67259.html#ixzz1chzthv2K