Kamala Harris lost a key aide yesterday, but may have more problems retaining her credibility. Larry Wallace worked for Harris during her time as California’s attorney general as well as in her Senate office as a senior advisor. Between those two jobs, his assistant filed a complaint over sexual harassment and retaliation for Wallace’s actions during the transition. The state of California quietly paid $400,000 to settle the lawsuit, but it didn’t stay quiet permanently. The Sacramento Bee reported it yesterday afternoon:
Larry Wallace, who served as the director of the Division of Law Enforcement under then-Attorney General Harris, was accused by his former executive assistant in December 2016 of “gender harassment” and other demeaning behavior, including frequently asking her to crawl under his desk to change the paper in his printer.
The lawsuit was filed on Dec. 30, 2016, when Harris was still attorney general but preparing to be sworn in as California’s newly elected Democratic senator. It was settled less than five months later, in May 2017, by Xavier Becerra, who was appointed to replace her as attorney general.
Danielle Hartley complained to her supervisor about the harassment and sexism, which allegedly included Wallace forcing her to do personal errands such as getting his car washed. Her colleagues began taunting her over “walking the walk of shame,” making her situation untenable. After she complained, however, it only got worse:
According to the lawsuit, Hartley eventually informed her supervisor, Shannon Patterson, of the harassment and asked for help. “Hartley observed Patterson enter Wallace’s office and met with him behind closed doors,” the lawsuit states, but after that, she began to experience retaliation.
The lawsuit describes that Hartley was “set up to fail,” micro-managed by Patterson, investigated by internal affairs on a “fabricated charge” for which she was never informed of the outcome, and “told she should quit her job and seek employment elsewhere.”
So here we have a classic complaint on sexual harassment and retaliation. The complaint alleges that a boss singled out an employee for demeaning tasks and objectified her with ridiculous demands. His actions humiliated her in front of others, creating an explicitly hostile work environment. When the employee took the appropriate step of notifying her supervisor, it resulted in retaliation.
Shouldn’t the executive in charge of this operation be held accountable? Through her spokesperson, Kamala Harris says … no, not really:
A top aide to Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., resigned on Wednesday after a report surfaced of a $400,000 sexual harassment settlement resulting from his time working for Harris at the California Department of Justice in 2016.
Harris’ office said in a statement to NBC News that it was unaware of the settlement. …
“We were unaware of this issue and take accusations of harassment extremely seriously. This evening (Wednesday), Mr. Wallace offered his resignation to the senator and she accepted it,” Adams said.
The state’s top law-enforcement officer was unaware of a lawsuit involving her own office and her transition team to the Senate, which her successor had to settle for $400,000? Seriously? Was Harris that much of an absentee AG, so clueless as to the inner workings of her office that she had no inkling of this behavior or the fact that an employee had filed a harassment-retaliation lawsuit on her watch?
The fact that Harris’ successor Xavier Becerra ended up settling this suit raises even more questions. Becerra must have discussed this with Wallace before reaching the decision to spend so much on a settlement, and Wallace was by that time on Harris’ Senate staff. In fact, we can surmise that Becerra must have had some contact with Wallace to have initially trotted out this defense in the lawsuit before settling for a very large amount of cash:
Becerra, who by then had been appointed to succeed Harris, and two of this deputies said the department took “reasonable steps to prevent and correct workplace harassment” by instituting procedures for harassment and training Hartley on the policy.
Hartley “unreasonably failed to utilize the procedures during the period of time, and after, the alleged harassment or discrimination was occurring,” Becerra wrote. “Had Plaintiff taken reasonable effort to utilize these procedures Plaintiff’s alleged harm, injury or damages would have been avoided, in whole or in part.”
How would they have known to argue this without checking in with Wallace — and Harris? Are we to believe that Xavier Becerra never picked up a phone to discuss this matter with his political ally before making this argument, and then spending an amount equal to the US president’s annual salary to make it go away? Come on, man.
If the left didn’t have hypocrisy as a tenet they would have nothing at all. This is yet ANOTHER incident to PROVE the left doesn’t care about the treatment of women but merely seek out opportunities to use for political profit. Seeing Michelle sitting so comfortably and chatting with Bill Clinton at the Bush 41 funeral further makes the point.
But don’t expect anything like this to hurt Kamala’s Presidential prospects; MeToo is nothing but an open joke among liberals where they ignore liberal assaults on women to avoid embarrassment and inconvenience. No doubt Kamala herself turned sexual harassment in the workplace into a career opportunity.
and this slut, piece of trash wants to be the next pres.
Is everyone here aware of the fact that Kamala Harris is NOT a natural born citizen and is not eligible to be president? Both of her parents were not US citizens when she was born, therefore she is not ‘natural born’. Why doesn’t anyone ever mention this?
@Redteam: Dont think Kammi is a real player for nomination Barry is building up Cruz opponent and financier or the caravan Beto. He has already shown his lack of ethics and respect for the rule of law and our sovereignty, he is perfect for the new Democrat party, invite him to a few spirit cooking Parties with the Podestas and really groom him.
@kitt: I agree that Harris is most likely to not be a serious candidate, just want to make sure everyone is aware of her lack of qualifications. Something the libs don’t seem to care about. When the Dimocrats pulled Obozo out of never-neverland to run him for president, at least they were able to get him elected as :Senator before he ran. They couldn’t get Veto-Beto elected for anything, though I recognize they didn’t run him for dog catcher, where he might have prevailed.
@kitt: Puto O’Rook is being groomed to be the next Obama. He’s probably looking for the best place to hide his birth certificate right now.