Dems & GOP share rare bipartisan moment ignoring Garcetti sexual assault scandal

Biden's nominee to be ambassador to India stands accused of ignoring & covering up the serial sexual assault of his own staff. Why are Dems and Republicans both silent?

#MeToo for thee, but not for me.

President Biden nominated Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti to be our next ambassador to India, despite the fact that Garcetti is facing multiple credible accusations — among others, one from a close friend of mine, Naomi Seligman, who was Garcetti’s communications director, and another from LA cop Matthew Garza — that he routinely overlooked the serial sexual assault of his own staff by a longtime close friend and adviser, Rick Jacobs.

I’ve known Naomi for nearly two decades. She started in politics working for Ted Kennedy, was the deputy head at CREW, and then became a Democratic consultant. If Naomi says Jacobs sexually assaulted her on the job, with up to eight fellow staffers witnessing the incident, and that Garcetti knew and did nothing about it, I believe her.

(Full disclosure: I’ve also known Jacobs for years. We both travel in the same national LGBT rights circles. I don’t recall ever seeing Jacob’s inappropriately touching anyone, though I do remember him as quite flirtatious. When Naomi’s story broke last week — she only recently told her story — a second (straight) friend confided in me that Jacobs accosted him at an event by kissing him on the lips without permission. Again, this friend has no reason to lie.)

There have been a lot of news stories about this scandal. And Garza, the cop who was part of Garcetti’s security detail who says he was sexually harassed and assaulted by Jacobs, even sued the city over it. But he and Naomi aren’t the only accusers. Jacobs allegedly kissed Naomi’s husband on the lips at a political event, and the comms director who Garcetti hired after Naomi says multiple staffers in the mayor’s office told her they too were sexually harassed and/or assaulted by Jacobs.

Let me share the details of what Naomi and Officer Garza say happened to them. First Naomi, from NY Magazine:

Seligman’s team had just returned to her office in City Hall for a debriefing when her boss, the political consultant Rick Jacobs — Garcetti’s deputy chief of staff — burst into the room. Seligman speaks with the poised, hyperefficient cadence of a veteran comms strategist, but she winces when she describes what happened next. “He crushes me against his body, pulling me in with all his strength,” she says now, telling her story publicly for the first time. “I’m like a rag doll. He’s pulling me into him and kisses me on the lips for some long, uncomfortable period of time. He kisses me on the lips. I’m trying to push back, but he has my arms pinned down against the sides of my body so I have no leverage to push back.”

Jacobs eventually let go of Seligman, congratulated the staff on Garcetti’s speech, and walked out the door. “I’m surrounded by my entire team, and they’ve seen this act of dominance over me,” she recalls. “I felt humiliated.” Seligman went to find Ana Guerrero, Garcetti’s then–chief of staff, who was senior to Jacobs, at least on paper. “I walked into her office and looked at her and said, ‘I can’t believe what just happened. Rick just kissed me in front of my staff.’ And she just rolled her eyes. Like it was an annoyance,” Seligman says. “She wouldn’t talk about it. She didn’t even want to say, ‘I’m sorry it happened to you.’ The only thing she said was that there’s nothing we can do about him.”

And here’s what LA cop Garza alleges:

LAPD officer Matthew Garza joined Garcetti’s security detail in 2013 and said Jacobs began to harass him almost immediately, according to his complaint filed against the city. The lawsuit describes a pattern by Jacobs of forcible hugs, unwanted touching, and crude remarks about “rough sex” and “big c*cks” — “You guys ready to f*ck without K-Y?” was what Jacobs would sometimes say in the car on the way to events — including rubbing Garza’s biceps and shoulders while whispering comments in his ear like “You feel so strong” and “Your muscles are so tight.” Henry Casas, a public-engagement director for city hall, testified that he saw Garza being harassed and that Jacobs gave Casas shoulder massages during weekly meetings. “It was common knowledge in the office,” Casas said. Indeed, Garcetti staffers apologized for Jacobs’s behavior to Garza more than a dozen times, according to the complaint. And according to Garza’s lawsuit, “Mayor Garcetti was present on approximately half of the occasions when Jacobs behaved in this way, and witnessed Jacobs’ conduct, but he took no action to correct Jacobs’ obviously harassing behavior.” Garza said that in 2016 he heard Garcetti discuss the possibility that Jacobs’s inappropriate behavior would “bite them in the ass.” Garcetti was asked under oath if he had ever expressed surprise that the city hadn’t been sued over Jacobs’s behavior. “I have never said that to anybody, publicly or private,” Garcetti testified earlier this year.

But, John, you say, how do we KNOW that Garcetti knew this was going on? A few points:

1. Multiple witnesses say Garcetti was present during the incidents.

2. To wit: Here’s Garcetti (red tie) at a mayor’s conference, being photographed with Jacobs (far left) appearing to grab a man’s crotch:

   

   Garcetti under oath yesterday: "I want to say unequivocally that I never witnessed nor was it brought to my attention the behavior that's been alleged and I also want to assure that if it had been, I would have immediately taken action to stop that."

3. If this many people allege that they either saw Jacobs sexually harass and/or assault people on the job, then that would suggest it’s a pattern of behavior that you’d think Jacob’s close friend Garcetti was aware of, if not simply by osmosis. Even I knew that Jacob’s could be overly-flirty, and I certainly don’t know him as well as Garcetti does.

4. We’re to believe that Naomi told Garcetti’s chief of staff what happened, and the CoS didn’t tell Garcetti? That would be political malpractice. You’d have to tell the boss about it, even if you didn’t believe it, if only to make sure he was aware of the accusation lest it ever go public — especially considering Garcetti had (has?) presidential aspirations.

5. And finally, according to multiple witnesses, Garcetti repeatedly commented on how amazing it was that they never got sued for “everything that Rick’s done.” Again, from NY Mag:

In 2018, the year after Jacobs officially left city hall, he hosted a 60th-birthday party for himself at his home for about 50 guests. White string lights wrapped around the palm tree in the center of the backyard, and a band played songs including “I Love L.A.,” encouraging the crowd to sing along. Jacobs’s usual roster of political heavy-hitters, including Garcetti and Wakeland, had been assigned seats at tables of ten, and they were prompted to share a memory or funny story about Jacobs, according to several guests who were there. Garcetti had prepared remarks for his roast of Jacobs, which included a joke about Jacobs using Grindr, but Garcetti told some guests that Wakeland was uncomfortable with the jab. “Amy doesn’t want me to say this,” one guest recalls Garcetti saying. “She’s mad at me because I’m going to say something and she doesn’t think I should.” According to the guest, Garcetti then said, “What do you mean? I can’t believe we’ve never been sued for everything that Rick’s done.’”

That same year, Jacobs recruited Jeremy Bernard to be CEO of the Mayor’s Fund, the nonprofit Jacobs had co-founded with Garcetti. Bernard had been a social secretary and special assistant to the president in the Obama White House and had known Jacobs for more than a decade. Bernard, too, heard Garcetti express similar concerns, as he also testified earlier this year. “I heard him say it more than once,” Bernard says. “It was definitely said with this genuine feeling of relief that they got through the period that Rick worked there without being sued. Can you believe that we got through it without a lawsuit?”

The fact that Garcetti stands credibly accused of ignoring, and now covering up, serial sexual assault in his own office — Naomi says Garcetti lied under oath about the incidents in the LAPD lawsuit, and Garcetti denied any knowledge again during yesterday’s nomination hearing — would normally make his nomination to any position outside of the Trump administration a political non-starter. Nonetheless, President Biden nominated Garcetti for the ambassadorship after making Garcetti co-chair of his inauguration. I’m a huge Biden fan, but it’s hard not to conclude that Biden is ignoring credible allegations of sexual assault in order to stand by his friend: The exact thing of which Garcetti stands accused.

Another observation. In yesterday’s Senator Foreign Relations Committee nominations hearing, not a single Republican even mentioned the allegations against Garcetti; while only one Democrat raised them, then immediately made clear she was voting for him anyway. Democrats’ are suffering from a cowardice of convenience. The White House has surely made clear that Biden wants Garcetti confirmed, period — and that Democrats can’t afford to appear weak as we enter the 2022 election cycle. So, Democrats are genuflecting accordingly.

Speaking of which, oh how the mighty Kirsten Gillibrand, and the other Democratic Senate women — slayers of Al Franken for doing far less — have fallen into line to defend a man who enables sexual assault simply because another man told them to. I’m disappointed by the hypocrisy, but not surprised.

But what’s up with the GOP? If you’re a crass Republican politician, this stuff is political gold. Even were the allegations NOT credible, when has that every stopped Republicans? It makes zero sense that not a single Republican on the committee has raised a concern about any of this. Unless, they were bought off. I can’t think of another credible reason why the GOP wouldn’t want to skewer a friend of Joe on an issue that’s a core Democratic value: Respecting women (though several victims were men), and taking accusations of sexual assault seriously.

All I can think of is that the Biden White House has already reached a deal with Republicans over all the backlogged nominations, and Garcetti is part of that deal. What did Biden have to give away in order to get Garcetti confirmed? Who knows. But I can’t think of any other reason that the GOP has suddenly chosen NOT to skewer Biden over an issue that is sure to create a wedge in his own party.

In the end, Garcetti should have never been nominated for any Senate-confirmed position. There are multiple credible witnesses who saw Jacob’s sexual harass and assault members of Garcetti’s staff, and multiple credible witnesses who say Garcetti was present when many of the incidents occurred. And finally, there are multiple credible witnesses who say that Garcetti has repeatedly commented with wonder that he’s never been sued over Jacob’s behavior ( though Garcetti didn’t appear to acknowledge what that behavior was, at least publicly).

Garcetti knew. We all know. The only remaining question is what, if anything, we’re going to do about it.

PS You can read Naomi’s letter to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, detailing what happened to her and others.