SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — A top aide to California U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris resigned Wednesday over revelations he was involved in a harassment lawsuit and $400,000 settlement while working for the state Department of Justice.
Larry Wallace, a senior adviser in Harris’s Sacramento office, resigned after the Sacramento Bee inquired about the 2017 settlement, the newspaper reported .
“We were unaware of this issue and take accusations of harassment extremely seriously,” Harris spokeswoman Lily Adams said. “This evening, Mr. Wallace offered his resignation to the senator, and she accepted it.”
In response to a follow-up question, Adams said the office was unaware of the complaint, settlement and lawsuit.
Harris was elected California’s attorney general in 2010 and served until early 2017, when she entered the U.S. Senate. While the settlement was finalized in May 2017, the lawsuit was filed in December 2016.
Wallace was director of the Division of Law Enforcement in the Department of Justice. Before that, he worked for Harris when she was San Francisco district attorney.
Harris, a potential 2020 Democratic presidential contender, has been a strong supporter of the #MeToo movement. In June she introduced legislation to curb workplace harassment.
The lawsuit by Danielle Hartley alleges Wallace harassed and demeaned her based on her gender while she was working for him, according to the Bee. Hartley says Wallace placed his computer printer under his desk and routinely asked Hartley to crawl under to refill it with paper, while he was sitting there and sometimes with other men in the room. He also asked Hartley to do personal tasks not related to work.
Hartley began as Wallace’s assistant in 2011. She reported the harassment to her supervisor and felt she was retaliated against, according to the lawsuit. She was transferred to another Department of Justice office by the end of 2014.
Wallace did not comment to the newspaper.
The department denied the claims in Hartley’s lawsuit. Harris’s successor, current state Attorney General Xavier Becerra, said Hartley failed to utilize training and procedures to deal with harassment in an answer to the lawsuit.
Hartley is barred from discussing the settlement amount as part of the settlement and agreed not to apply for jobs with the Justice Department. She did not comment to the Bee.
$400K is a spicy meatball. Where did this dude come up with that kind of scratch?
I’m confused.
How did we get from #4 to #5? She could no longer work for the DOJ, how about him? Was a big hush-hush attached so guy’s next employer (Harris) wouldn’t find out?
If you live by the @MeToo movement you will die by the @MeToo movement. Harris apparently had an extensive background with Wallace. He had worked for her when she was District Attorney. Even if she didn’t know about his background, she should have. It will be interesting to see if her Presidential ambitions survive.
I find it very difficult to assess these cases of alleged harassment. The Neil DeGrasse Tyson cases are concerning, but I’m not able to reach a conclusion about them. I disagree with the idea that we must automatically “believe the women”, but rather I feel that we should not discount the stories of alleged victims. We should keep an open mind to their stories without presuming guilt.
Some behavior is ill-advised, clumsy, creepy, and/or inappropriate. At some point, it becomes harassment. Sometimes, people may not realize how their behavior may be perceived. For borderline situations, it’s really incumbent on the recipient of unwelcome attention to communicate their boundaries. When is a situation borderline? I don’t have a pat answer for that.
In regard to Neil DeGrasse Tyson, he is also accused of rape many years ago. This charge may be difficult to assess the veracity of. However, it appears there will be an investigation. I feel like news organizations are good at bringing these stories to light, but may not be the best at performing an impartial investigation.
Kamala Harris isn’t alledged to have harassed anybody. The person who is alledged to have harassed somebody has resigned. Harris says she didn’t know about the settlement, which is believable because her staff would want to wall her off from employment disputes, as would the staffs of most politicians.
Funny, though, how the press will now try to make her responsible for someone else’s alledged actions.