California Republican congressional candidate Carl DeMaio suggested that allegations of sexual harassment against him and Democratic attacks related to those allegations are fueled by the fact that he’s openly gay.
“I guess you can say anything about the gay guy and some people will believe it,” DeMaio told The Hill’s Alexandra Jaffe.
The comment by DeMaio comes as he continues to face attention for allegations by a former staffer who said he was sexually harassed by DeMaio and, when the staffer, Todd Bosnich, complained to DeMaio’s campaign manager, was brushed off and pushed to sign a nondisclosure agreement about the allegations.
DeMaio, in his interview with The Hill, went on to accuse opponent Rep. Scott Peters’ (D-CA) camapign of promoting the claims by Bosnich.
“I think when we learned this week that Scott Peters’ campaign was actively promoting this smear to reporters and making other claims that were outrageous, despicable, disgraceful, unethical — it simply confirmed for me the lengths that this man would go and lack of judgement that [Peters] possesses to simply hang onto a political seat in Congress,” DeMaio said.
Bosnich, over Twitter on Monday, said DeMaio was just trying to move the blame away from himself.
@JustinCSnow This is just another attempt by @carldemaio to blame his history of bad behavior and it’s consequences on anything but himself
— Todd Bosnich (@Te_Boz) October 20, 2014
RealClearPolitics currently rates the race as a tossup.
