Former Hillary Campaign Manager Accused of Ignoring Sexual Harassment by Staffer
WikiLeaks tweeted an email from Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman John Podesta on Tuesday, which alleges that her campaign manager Robby Mook covered up accusations of sexual harassment made against another staffer because he was a friend.
The email was first released by WikiLeaks in October 2016 with a batch of 2,000 Podesta emails; however, it has garnered new interest in the current #MeToo climate.
In the communication, U.S. News & World Report senior political writer David Catanese reached out to a woman named Mara Lee Durrell in January 2015. Durrell held a leadership position in Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign in Nevada, The Daily Wire reported.
Cantanese was seeking to substantiate a source’s claim that Clinton campaign staffer Marlon Marshall, who at the time was a field director for the state of Nevada, made repeated unwanted sexual advances toward women working on the 2008 campaign.
The source further alleged that Mook, who served as state director for Nevada for Clinton’s 2008 campaign, was made aware of the issue, but did nothing because he and Marshall were close friends.
The source reportedly stated that Marshall “would ‘corner women, make them uncomfortable and make suggestions about having sex.’”
“The source encouraged me to contact women who worked under him in the Nevada office,” Catanese wrote. “I was wondering if you were able to describe your experience with Marshall and if any of this rings true, with you or anyone else you know who worked there.”
When Catanese made his inquiry to Durrell, Marshall was serving as the director of state campaigns and political engagement for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign and Mook was her campaign manager, LifeZette reported.
Durrell did not substantiate Cantanese’s source’s claim.
She forwarded the email to Mook and Marshall. Mook then forwarded the email chain to Podesta on Jan. 19, 2015.
“Happy to speak out based on my very positive experience working with all of you if that helps — on or off the record,” Durrell said in an email to Marshall, Mook, and Podesta.
After the batch of Podesta emails was made public by WikiLeaks in Oct. 2016, Cantanese responded to an inquiry about his email to Durrell on Twitter explaining why the story went no further.
“RE: inquiries, I got a tip, I followed through, but could not substantiate the claims. Pretty standard journalism,” Catanese tweeted, according to LifeZette.
WikiLeaks released its batch of Podesta emails on the same day, and within hours of, the 2005 Access Hollywood tape of President Donald Trump talking coarsely about women being made public.
On Saturday, WikiLeaks released an email exchange that showed a New York Times reporter giving advanced notice of stories to be published by the paper to a high ranking official in Clinton’s State Department.
The stories were based on a release of a large cache of diplomatic correspondence by WikiLeaks in 2010, which came to be known as “Cablegate.”
The Times reporter’s apparent purpose for sharing the paper’s publishing schedule, according to WikiLeaks, was to give the State Department a chance to review and “spin the revelations or create diversions.”
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