Fired Female Staffer Reportedly Paid Off in Sexual Harassment 'Cover Up' by Powerful Congressman
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You wouldn’t have heard the woman’s story about Michigan Representative John Conyers—a Democrat and the longest-serving member of the House, who she told BuzzFeed News sexually harassed her—under the terms of a 2015 private settlement she felt she had no option but to take.
The story published Monday night is a window into the shadowy world of how members of Congress take out their dirty laundry. The woman, who the site didn’t name because she fears retribution, settled a wrongful dismissal complaint in 2015 after claiming she was fired because she would not “succumb to [Conyer’s] sexual advances.”
Documents from the complaint obtained by the site—which include four signed affidavits, three of which are notarized—allege that Conyers, who’s the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, made repeated sexual advances toward female staff, including asking for sexual favors, caressing their hands and rubbing their backs and legs in public, and asking them to contact and transport women with whom they suspect Conyers was having extramarital affairs. (A notable aside: The documents were originally leaked to BuzzFeed by Mike Cernovich, the men’s rights activist-turned-pedophilia-conspiracy theorist, who said congressional leaders would “try to discredit the story by attacking the messenger” if he published them himself.)