Stories like this open a window into sealed rooms in which
the usual favorable campaign propaganda is produced by the truckload.
This one, which ran in the Washington Post,
is not good news for U.S. Representative Elizabeth Esty, most recently seen
bobbing her head in assent to a vigorous attack on the National Rifle
Association (NRA) by a teenage rabble rouser in Washington DC.
The Post story begins with a knock-out lede: “The threat
from Rep. Elizabeth Esty’s chief of staff arrived in a voice mail.
“’You better f-----g reply to me or I will f-----g kill
you,’ Tony Baker said in the May 5, 2016, recording left for Anna Kain, a
former Esty aide Baker had once dated.”
Kain alerted the police, according to the Post story, “filed
a report for felony threats and obtained a 12-month restraining order against
Baker.”
A week later, Esty found out about the episode, and “… rather
than firing or suspending Baker, the congresswoman consulted her personal
attorneys and advisers, she said. She also spoke to Kain on May 11, emails
show; Kain said she provided detailed allegations that Baker had punched,
berated and sexually harassed her in Esty’s Capitol Hill office throughout
2014, while she worked as Esty’s senior adviser… On May 5, 2016, Baker called
Kain approximately 50 times and said he would ‘find her’ and ‘kill her,’ she
alleged in the petition.”
Three months after the reported abuse, Kain bade Esty
goodbye, the congresswoman having provided him with a favorable job
recommendation. Kane found employment with the Ohio branch of Sandy Hook
Promise (SHP), an organization formed after the slaughter of school children
and staff of the Sandy Hook Elementary School that agitates in favor of gun
control and school safety. Before hiring Baker, SHP contacted Esty by phone.
We do not know if there is a record of the conversation --
SHP’s spokesperson was unavailable for comment when the Post story ran -- but
it seems reasonable to assume that Esty had not warned officials at SHP that
their hire had assaulted and threatened women, was an alcoholic and had exhibited
brutal and violent tendencies. Esty had signed a non-disclosure agreement with
Baker. The penalties for breaking contracts superseded any political backlash
that might have damaged Esty’s career as both a third term Congresswoman and an
ardent defender of women’s rights in the post-Weinstein #metoo era.
Esty retained Baker in her office for three months after she
had full knowledge of her chief of staff’s assaults and life-threatening
e-mails. On the advice of counsel, she signed a non-disclosure agreement that
would protect both her and Baker from the indignity of answering media
inquiries. And, as part of the agreed upon separation, Esty recommended Baker
to Sandy Hook Promise as a promising hire. For all of this, Esty is deeply
sorry.
Will sorry be enough? Esty is, after all, a woman who has
placed herself on the post—#metoo barricades. Her mistake was simply listening
to the lawyers -- Esty is also a lawyer – and not acting in the moment as her
conscience prompted her. If she is on the left side of the political
barricades, why should unsavory incidents such as these cost her a
well-established position of eminence within the social progressive movement
she has ridden like a hobby horse into re-election efforts for three, possibly
four terms in the #metoo inspired Democrat Party? “Esty said she plans to
advocate for greater accountability in how congressional offices are managed,” the
Post advises, closing out the tawdry tale.
Republicans already are waving Esty’s head on their campaign
pikes, and Democrat support for the beleaguered Esty is flaccid. Executive director of the Connecticut
Citizen Action Group, most often the last passenger to jump overboard on a
sinking ship, said he’s “not ready to jump off” the ship yet. U.S. Senator Dick
Blumenthal was cautiously unoptimistic. “I’m deeply disappointed,” said the
moral conscience of the Senate. “She should talk to her constituents. It’s
their decision not mine. I need to know more and so do her constituents.” The always
eupeptic U.S. Senator Chris Murphy said, “I talked to Elizabeth, and I'm glad
she acknowledges this [that mistakes were made]. Nobody working in a
congressional office or any other setting should feel afraid to come to work.
Protecting victims of workplace harassment needs to come first, and the rules
of Congress need to change to ensure that happens."
Esty has said she has no intention of resigning her position
in the U.S. House. Is it presumptuous to suppose that the Congressional reforms
Murphy believes are necessary might be more quickly adopted if Esty did resign?
Comments