Rep. Jackie Speier (D-CA) started an avalanche of fake news after she said the feds paid $15 million over two decades for sexual harassment
Speier is one of several female lawmakers who has spoken out about sexual harassment being pervasive on Capitol Hill in recent days.
Speier’s remarks took place in an interview on Tuesday with Chuck Todd on MSNBC’s MTP Daily, which was quickly picked up by numerous media outlets, including the Hill:
“Fifteen million dollars has been paid out over sexual harassment claims so obviously more than one member of Congress,” Todd said in the interview.
The Hill, among other outlets, added Speier’s later attempts to clarify her remarks:
The Daily Wire added this to its reporting on the settlement fund:
And, in fact, the OOC on Tuesday released its latest data on the number of settlements made each fiscal year from 1997 to 2017, even though it is only required to produce an annual report as required by the Congressional Accountability Act of 1995 (CAA).
“Based on the volume of recent inquiries regarding payment of awards and settlements reached under the CAA, I am releasing these figures beginning with Fiscal Year 1997, up to and including FY2017,” Susan Tsui Grundmann, executive director of the OOC, wrote in the report released on Thursday.
“A large portion of cases originate from employing of offices in the legislative branch other than the House of Representatives or the Senate, and involve various statutory provisions incorporated by the CAA, such as the overtime provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act, the Family, and Medical Leave Act, and the Americans with Disabilities Act,” Grundmann wrote. “The statistics on payments are not further broken down into specific claims because settlements may involve cases that allege violations of more than one of the 13 statutes incorporated by the CAA.”
Teresa James, director of the Administrative Dispute Resolution Program at OOC, told Breitbart News that confidentiality protocol means that there is no way to glean from the numbers exactly how many of the cases over the past two decades were for sexual harassment.
James also said that some cases involve multiple charges and multiple individuals. For example, in 2007 there were 25 settlements totaling $4,053,274, but each of those 25 cases could involve multiple people and multiple charges.
“There’s actually nothing we can do,” James said of finding out just how many cases involved sexual harassment, let alone who allegedly committed the abuse.
Axios reported there may be some in the House who know the tawdry details of sexual harassment cases:
CNN also reported that even if the names of lawmakers were made public, they still would not be responsible for any compensation given to sexual harassment victims.
