DeMaio: People Will Believe Harassment Scandal About The ‘Gay Guy’

Carl DeMaio, founder and president of The Performance Institute, gestures toward the Federal Bankruptcy Court in San Diego Thursday, May 19, 2005, where he announced that his organization will be filing to place seve... Carl DeMaio, founder and president of The Performance Institute, gestures toward the Federal Bankruptcy Court in San Diego Thursday, May 19, 2005, where he announced that his organization will be filing to place several initiatives on ballot to fix San Diego's financial crisis. DeMaio also his organization will grading the mayoral candidates and will possibly endorse one. (AP Photo/Lenny Ignelzi) MORE LESS
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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.

RealClearPolitics currently rates the race as a tossup.

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  1. Playing a tiny, tiny, tiny violin over here.

  2. Avatar for meri meri says:

    “This is just another attempt by @carldemaio to blame his history of bad behavior and it’s consequences on anything but himself”

    It’s called being a republican.

  3. This is one of those situations where I wouldn’t put it past the anti-gay GOP wing to make stuff like this up…but then again, there was former Democratic Congressman Eric Massa and his ‘ticklefests’.

  4. Avatar for dnl dnl says:

    awwwwww. He was just checking to see if they were ticklish…’’

    by giving them a Test Tickle.

  5. Avatar for meri meri says:

    My daughter thinks peoples throats are ticklish.Nobody’s is, and it’s fucking annnnnnnoying.

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