Tag: sexual harrassment

Why New York’s District Attorney Should Reopen That Fox News Investigation

The following article by Joe Conason was posted on the National Memo website August 28, 2018:

Roger Ailes, chairman and CEO of Fox News and Fox Television Stations at the Television Critics Assn on July 24, 2006. Credit: Fred Prouser, Reuters,/File Photo

For well over three decades, Robert M. Morgenthau served as the Manhattan District Attorney. A law enforcement legend, Morgenthau became renowned for his zealous pursuit of white-collar offenders.

He believed that “crime in the suites” deserved to be punished just as consistently as crime in the streets — and as a former federal prosecutor, he ignored minor issues such as jurisdiction when he thought justice needed to be done. And he sought expansive interpretations of law wherever he saw the federal government failing to do justice.

Recently I asked a ranking federal prosecutor who once worked for D.A. Morgenthau whether his old boss would have allowed Fox News Channel executives to escape accountability for the crimes of Roger Ailes and their alleged concealment of those crimes from auditors and shareholders.

View the complete article here.

Tawdry Tales Depict a Texas Congressman’s Frat House on the Hill

The following article by Sheryl Gay Stolberg was posted on the New York Times website December 11, 2017:

Two former aides to Representative Blake Farenthold, Republican of Texas, described his office as freewheeling, yet also filled with fear. Credit: Aaron P. Bernstein/Reuters

WASHINGTON — When Lauren Greene, a former communications director for Representative Blake Farenthold, sued him claiming sexual harassment, among her complaints was that he “disclosed that a female lobbyist had propositioned him for ‘a threesome.’”

Mr. Farenthold, in legal documents, said that Ms. Greene had it wrong. The woman wasn’t a lobbyist, he said. Continue reading “Tawdry Tales Depict a Texas Congressman’s Frat House on the Hill”

Woman says Roy Moore initiated sexual encounter when she was 14, he was 32

The following article by Stephanie McCrummen,  Beth Reinhard and Alcie Crites was posted on the Washington Post website November 9, 2017:

Leigh Corfman, left, in a photo from 1979, when she was about 14. At right, from top, Wendy Miller around age 16, Debbie Wesson Gibson around age 17 and Gloria Thacker Deason around age 18. (Family photos)

Leigh Corfman says she was 14 years old when an older man approached her outside a courtroom in Etowah County, Ala. She was sitting on a wooden bench with her mother, they both recall, when the man introduced himself as Roy Moore.

It was early 1979 and Moore — now the Republican nominee in Alabama for a U.S. Senate seat — was a 32-year-old assistant district attorney. He struck up a conversation, Corfman and her mother say, and offered to watch the girl while her mother went inside for a child custody hearing.

“He said, ‘Oh, you don’t want her to go in there and hear all that. I’ll stay out here with her,’ ” says Corfman’s mother, Nancy Wells, 71. “I thought, how nice for him to want to take care of my little girl.”

Alone with Corfman, Moore chatted with her and asked for her phone number, she says. Days later, she says, he picked her up around the corner from her house in Gadsden, drove her about 30 minutes to his home in the woods, told her how pretty she was and kissed her. On a second visit, she says, he took off her shirt and pants and removed his clothes. He touched her over her bra and underpants, she says, and guided her hand to touch him over his underwear. Continue reading “Woman says Roy Moore initiated sexual encounter when she was 14, he was 32”

Trump has some Weinstein-like qualities

The Rev. Timothy Johnson, it he Oct. 19 issue of the Eden Prairie News, uses Harvey Weinstein as the poster boy to set up his opinion piece, “Weinstein is reminder of the need for morals.”

The Rev. Johnson discusses the moral matters he thinks one should ponder as a result of Weinstein’s “multitudinous sexual encounters with almost anyone he wanted to conquer … .”

Weinstein has admitted that he is “sick” and needs help. One can only hope our justice system finds its way to do that. It’s breathtaking that his alleged behavior could go on for so long and be accepted as a norm. The Rev. Johnson has given his readers a lot to think about. Continue reading “Trump has some Weinstein-like qualities”

O’Reilly, Trump, And Ailes: The Culture Of Predatory Harassment Dominating The Conservative Movement

The following article by Eric Boehlert was posted on the Media Matters website April 4, 2017:

Photo: Reuters

With each new disturbing allegation, it’s become increasingly clear that a toxic atmosphere has flourished at Fox News, where powerful men have allegedly harassed and assaulted women for years.

The latest lawsuit to tumble out arrived on Monday, when Fox News contributor Julie Roginsky filed suit in court and claimed that former Fox News chief Roger Ailes had made unwanted sexual advances to her and implied he would reward her with a big promotion if she agreed.   Continue reading “O’Reilly, Trump, And Ailes: The Culture Of Predatory Harassment Dominating The Conservative Movement”