The House Ethics Committee on Tuesday launched an investigation into Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), following a BuzzFeed report that he had made sexual advances on staffers and reached a settlement with one former staffer who said she was fired for rejecting such advances.
“The Committee is aware of public allegations that Representative John Conyers, Jr. may have engaged in sexual harassment of members of his staff, discriminated against certain staff on the basis of age, and used official resources for impermissible personal purposes,” the chairwoman and ranking member of the committee, Reps. Susan Brooks (R-IN) and Ted Deutch (D-FL), wrote in a statement Tuesday. “The Committee, pursuant to Committee Rule 18(a), has begun an investigation and will gather additional information regarding these allegations.”
BuzzFeed reported Monday night on allegations that Conyers had made advances on and asked for sexual favors from staffers, in addition to using public funds to fly in women, with whom staffers believed Conyers was having affairs, to Washington, D.C.
Right-wing conspiracist Mike Cernovich provided BuzzFeed with the affidavits on which the reporting was first inspired. BuzzFeed also described a $27,000 settlement Conyers’ reached with a female staffer who claimed to have been fired for rejecting his advances.
Conyers vehemently denied wrongdoing in a statement Tuesday, but acknowledged that he had “resolved the allegations – with an express denial of liability – in order to save all involved from the rigors of protracted litigation.”
There are two things I see happening in all of this:
Both sides of the political aisle are doing these things, it’s not just one party.
Democrats are willing to hold their members responsible (or themselves in the case of Franken), while Republicans are only pointing at Democrats who do it and letting other Republicans slide. This is clear in the number of calls for actual investigation by Democrats with a report (no matter how small), while Republicans dodge and weave to avoid holding their members responsible.
It makes it pretty clear which party takes these things seriously, and which is putting the party before women’s health and safety.
Yep, the sexual assault is a society thing, not political.
Repubs are just always going to be ridiculous hypocrites on anything (presidential conflicts of interest anyone?) ; but you can hardly be surprised that the party of forced pregnancy is going to do anything about sexual misconduct when they don’t even really think its misconduct in the first place.
So here’s an anecdote from the male planet: I’m starting to get somewhat stressed, jokey, backlash-type texts etc from very liberal men who feel misunderstood, threatened etc., even though they’re not under personal accusation. I guess they’re nervous that someone might say something damaging and unfair. One of them has been a fairly ardent critic of Hillary Clinton, from the pious left. I couldn’t help thinking, as I fielded his request for a man-to-man solidarity-drink, that now he had some tiny inkling of what Clinton had to put up with for years: hysterical pseudo-leftist criticism that rejected the nuanced, fact-receptive perspective that is the precondition of justice. I’m looking forward to that drink and buying him a pint of Derangement Syndrome.
Well now it gets worse