Treasury fund paid $84,000 sexual harassment settlement

WASHINGTON — Rep. Blake Farenthold, R-Texas, used $84,000 in taxpayer funds to settle with a former aide who sued him for sexual harassment in 2014, The Washington Post confirmed Friday.

Mr. Farenthold is the first member of Congress confirmed to have benefited from a little-known Treasury Department fund created to cover workplace settlements involving lawmakers. The congressional Office of Compliance (OOC) 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 Mr. Farenthold.

The congressman’s former communications director, Lauren Greene, accused him of making sexually charged comments designed to gauge whether she was interested in a sexual relationship. She filed a lawsuit after going through the OOC’s counseling and mediation process. Mr. Farenthold denied wrongdoing in the case.

The revelation sheds new light on the secretive process that lawmakers use to settle workplace complaints against them and their aides using public funds. In total, the Treasury fund has paid for settlements related to six claims against House members’ offices since 2013, the OOC wrote in a letter Friday to the Committee on House Administration. The five complaints not pertaining to sexual harassment alleged one or more forms of employment discrimination and in some cases, retaliation, the letter stated.

The fund is not the only source of settlement payments for lawmakers accused of misconduct. Members such as Rep. John Conyers Jr., D-Mich., have used their office budgets to settle — and conceal — complaints. Settlements reached using this method are not tracked, and they are difficult to identify, even in congressional offices’ payment records.

The House Ethics Committee, requesting documents from the OOC, indicated Friday that it will review all formal claims of sexual harassment and other misconduct involving members and employees of the lower chamber.

That review — the committee’s first major action following a public outcry over sexual harassment in Congress — will encompass all current members and employees of the House who have been the subject of complaints, not just those who paid settlements through the Treasury fund.

Ethics watchdog groups welcomed the request as a sign the panel might wield its power to address mounting allegations of misconduct on Capitol Hill.

“A nice change of pace to see the Ethics Committee asserting its jurisdiction,” Meredith McGehee, executive director of Issue One, a nonprofit focused on government ethics, wrote in an email. “Usually they are looking for ways to avoid taking on hard questions, hoping the member leaves or burying the allegations until the ‘heat’ goes away.”

Under the law, the executive director of the Office of Compliance has authority to share records of hearings and decisions with the House and Senate ethics committees. The executive director can share all written and oral testimony from hearings and decisions, but not information discussed in mediation.

Laura Cech, spokeswoman for the OOC, said the office’s current officials do not recall ever providing records of hearings or decisions to congressional ethics committees.

It is not clear whether Ethics Committee Chairwoman Susan Brooks, RInd., and ranking Democrat Ted Deutch, Fla., who requested records from the OOC on Friday, plan to make them public or use the information to investigate lawmakers who have been accused of misconduct.

The panel also is probing allegations that Mr. Conyers behaved inappropriately toward multiple female aides.