Harassment claim
Farenthold vows personal refund in harassment case
U.S. Rep. Blake Farenthold, who used $84,000 in taxpayer dollars to settle a sexual harassment complaint, vows to take out a loan to pay it back.
WASHINGTON — U.S. Rep. Blake Farenthold, who used $84,000 in taxpayer dollars to settle with a former aide who sued him for sexual harassment in 2014, says he’s going to pay back the money.
Farenthold said Monday that he plans to use personal funds to repay the government, a move that would be unprecedented under the 1995 Congressional Accountability Act that governs workplace disputes against lawmakers and their staffs.
“If I don’t pay this, anything I say is going to be like, ‘This guy benefited from this system,’” Farenthold told the Houston Chronicle in an interview. “It takes away my legitimacy.”
The four-term congressman, maintaining he did nothing wrong, said in an earlier statement that he wants to pay the tab himself so that he can take on “a leadership role in reforming an obviously broken
system.”
“Make no mistake,” he added, “this repayment is not an admission of guilt.”
Farenthold said in a television interview in Corpus Christi that he might take out a personal loan and try this week to deliver a check to House Speaker Paul Ryan or other congressional leaders.
Farenthold also got an endorsement Monday from a past spokeswoman, Elizabeth Peace, who told the Chronicle that while Farenthold was always respectful, the atmosphere for women in much of the rest of Congress can be “toxic,” requiring mandatory sexual harassment training.
72nd-richest lawmaker
Farenthold, for his part, said that the losers in his case, which was eventually settled out of court, were the taxpayers who are required by law to underwrite settlements and awards against members of Congress.
“I want to be clear that I didn’t do anything wrong,” he told KRIS TV in Corpus Christi. “But I also don’t want the taxpayers to be on the hook for this.”
In a subsequent statement, Farenthold said he thought he had no choice about using taxpayer money in the 2015 confidential settlement he reached with his former spokeswoman, Lauren Greene.
Under the 1995 law, awards and settlements are paid from an account of the U.S. Treasury.
“From day one of this lawsuit, I hired a private attorney to represent me and was prepared to settle it without taxpayer funds,” Farenthold said. “But I was advised by attorneys from the Office of House Employment Counsel that since the lawsuit was filed against ‘the Office of Representative Farenthold,’ not me personally, I could not pay personally to settle the case.”
The scion of a wealthy and politically connected family, Farenthold’s net worth was estimated in 2015 at more than $5.7 million, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, which ranked him the 72nd wealthiest lawmaker in the House.
Farenthold, 55, is the first member of Congress now known to have benefited from a little-known Treasury Department fund created to cover workplace settlements involving lawmakers.
The congressional Office of Compliance disclosed Friday that the fund paid for only one sexual harassment settlement involving a House lawmaker’s office in the past five years, but did not name Farenthold.
Accuser defends claim
In a statement Friday, Farenthold declined to confirm or deny that the claim had involved him. But he confirmed the payment in his interview Monday.
“I wish I could have said something Friday,” he told the television station. “I went to the House lawyer and said, ‘What can I say?, and they said, ‘Nothing … Here’s the statement that you can make.’”
Farenthold’s account, however, differs from documents provided by the Office of Compliance, which state that the terms of settlement agreements, including any provisions governing disclosure, “are solely determined by the parties and their representatives.”
Greene, then 27, alleged in a 2014 federal lawsuit that Farenthold made sexually suggestive remarks and, along with top staff members, created a hostile work environment. She also alleged that he retaliated against her when she complained. She did not allege any inappropriate sexual contact.
“I have nothing to hide,” Greene told CNN Monday night. “I think I did the right thing. I stood up for myself.”
In his response to Greene’s complaint, Farenthold alleged that she was fired for “poor performance.”
The out-of-court settlement came after the Office of Congressional Ethics, an independent watchdog agency, cleared Farenthold, concluding that there was no “substantial reason” to believe the allegations against the Corpus Christi Republican.
Farenthold emphasized Monday that the mediated settlement with Greene stipulated that both sides agreed that “the mediator’s solution saves the parties, and the taxpayers, significant sums that would be expended in further discovery and/or trial. The parties’ settlement expressly provides that both parties deny all liability.”.
Until now the details of the settlement, including the $84,000 payout, remained under wraps, apparently by agreement of the parties. At the time, Farenthold was represented by lawyers for the House Employment Counsel.
Though Farenthold was cleared in 2015, the House Ethics Committee indicated Friday that it will review all formal claims of sexual harassment and other misconduct involving members and employees of the House.
He said he hired his own attorney at personal expense over the weekend to review the 2015 settlement, and was advised that he can talk about the “process.”
Saw him as considerate
Peace, who served as the congressman’s spokeswoman for two years after Greene left, said that while Farenthold always treated her with respect, the same is not true elsewhere in Congress.
“My two years with Congressman Farenthold were incredibly valuable,” Peace said in an email. “I had an extensive and great career prior to working for the House but I learned so much during my time there. Congressman Farenthold was always very respectful to me and very considerate of my family — as in flexible with my schedule when necessary for the needs of my children as my husband was deployed overseas for the majority of the time I worked there.
“Sadly,” she added, “I’m not surprised by the news coming out lately about sexual harassment in Congress as a whole because of other things I witnessed and things that occurred during my time there. It can be a very toxic work environment as a whole, but once the congressman became aware of those issues, he immediately took action on behalf of his staff and did his best to always do the right thing.
“While I don’t want to discuss the particulars of that, I am very empathetic to the stories of other women coming forward in recent weeks. I would urge Congress to immediately pass mandatory sexual harassment training for all staffers as I believe it’s greatly needed.”