About due process
Republicans in the age of Trump have done plenty of grousing about Democrats’ supposedly shifting standards on sexual harassment allegations. Simply believing women’s allegations and booting people from their jobs without sufficient scrutiny, they claim, is to allow a kind of tyranny of the accuser, to buckle to pernicious progressive cancel culture.
So how do GOP insiders explain the warp speed with which they have shunted away Corey Lewandowski based on a woman’s claim of sexual harassment?
Trashelle Odom says that at a Las Vegas charity event over the past weekend, Lewandowski touched her repeatedly on her legs, buttocks and elsewhere, spoke to her in sexually graphic terms about his genitalia and “stalked” her throughout the night. According to Politico, “four people who were first-hand witnesses at the event corroborated Odom’s allegations.”
The fallout has been swift and decisive. Lewandowski was booted from his role overseeing a pro-Trump super PAC, which is a shame given that the treatment of women of which he stands accused is perfectly on-brand for the former president. Thursday, Nebraska Republican gubernatorial candidate Charles Herbster threw Lewandowski overboard. Friday, South Dakota Gov. Kristie Noem, considered a star in the GOP firmament and a likely 2024 presidential contender, severed ties with Lewandowski as well.
No one in these top-tier Republican circles is insisting Lewandowski — who, through his attorney, says he will not dignify the “accusations and rumors” “with a further response” — deserves due process, or that the accuser’s claim needs to be put through the ringer before there are serious career consequences for the political operative. Why not? After all, they didn’t purge Lewandowski from their circles after earlier serious accusations he mistreated women, such as the claim that he slapped singer Joy Villa in the buttocks during a holiday party, or the time he yanked the arm of a reporter at a Trump event. To the contrary, they gave him more power and authority. What changed?
Did we mention Trashelle Odom is a deep-pocketed political donor?