The ‘Herminator’ is having a really bad day

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Well, now we know why Herman Cain plans to cut back appearances – scandals! The "Herminator" is having a really bad day.

Talking Points Memo reports Aides’ Corporation May Have Illegally Gotten Cain Campaign Off The Ground:

Long before Herman Cain chief of staff Mark Block was appearing in the most mocked campaign ad of the presidential campaign so far, he and deputy chief of staff Linda Hansen started a Wisconsin corporation that the Journal Sentinel reports illegally helped the GOP presidential candidate get his campaign off the ground.

According to sources and documents obtained by the newspaper, Prosperity USA, founded by Block and Hansen, footed the bill “for tens of thousands of dollars in expenses for such items as iPads, chartered flights and travel to Iowa and Las Vegas – something that might breach federal tax and campaign law.” Daniel Bice reports:

It is not known if Cain’s election fund eventually paid back Prosperity USA, which now appears defunct. The candidate’s federal election filings make no mention of the debt, and the figures in the documents don’t match payments made by the candidate’s campaign.

In addition to picking up these expenses at least initially, Prosperity USA also paid as much as $100,000 to the Congress of Racial Equality, a conservative black organization, shortly before Cain was a featured speaker at the group’s annual Martin Luther King Jr. dinner in mid-January. 

Records show that Prosperity USA’s largest asset was nearly $40,000 owed to the organization by “FOH” — Friends of Herman Cain — which the Journal Sentinel reports owed “nearly $15,000 for an ‘Atlanta invoice,’ about $17,000 for chartered flight service and $5,000 for travel and meetings in Iowa, Las Vegas, Houston, Dallas and Louisiana. The document says the Cain campaign had been billed $3,700 for iPads purchased on Jan. 4.’”

The Journal Sentinel said the records suggest that Prosperity USA “had been underwriting travel for Cain even before he announced his plans to run for president.”

“I just don’t see how they can justify this,” a national election expert told the Journal Sentinel. “It’s a total mess.”

Read the full report here.

But the scandal that the salacious media villagers will focus on because of their unquenchable prurient sexual interests is an old sexual harrassment claim. (Has anyone checked for Karl Rove's fingerprints on this story?) Politico reports Exclusive: 2 women accused Cain of inappropriate behavior: 

During Herman Cain’s tenure as the head of the National Restaurant Association in the 1990s, at least two female employees complained to colleagues and senior association officials about inappropriate behavior by Cain, ultimately leaving their jobs at the trade group, multiple sources confirm to POLITICO.

The women complained of sexually suggestive behavior by Cain that made them angry and uncomfortable, the sources said, and they signed agreements with the restaurant group that gave them financial payouts to leave the association. The agreements also included language that bars the women from talking about their departures.

In a series of comments over the past 10 days, Cain and his campaign repeatedly declined to respond directly about whether he ever faced allegations of sexual harassment at the restaurant association. They have also declined to address questions about specific reporting confirming that there were financial settlements in two cases in which women leveled complaints.

POLITICO has confirmed the identities of the two female restaurant association employees who complained about Cain but, for privacy concerns, is not publishing their names.

Cain spokesman J.D. Gordon told POLITICO the candidate indicated to campaign officials that he was “vaguely familiar” with the charges and that the restaurant association’s general counsel had resolved the matter.

The latest statement came from Cain himself. In a tense sidewalk encounter Sunday morning outside the Washington bureau of CBS News — where the Republican contender had just completed an interview on “Face the Nation” — Cain evaded a series of questions about sexual harassment allegations.

* * *

POLITICO learned of the allegations against him, and over the course of several weeks, has put together accounts of what happened by talking to a lengthy roster of former board members, current and past staff and others familiar with the workings of the trade group at the time Cain was there.

In one case, POLITICO has seen documentation describing the allegations and showing that the restaurant association formally resolved the matter. Both women received separation packages that were in the five-figure range.

On the details of Cain’s allegedly inappropriate behavior with the two women, POLITICO has a half-dozen sources shedding light on different aspects of the complaints.

The sources — which include the recollections of close associates and other documentation — describe episodes that left the women upset and offended. These incidents include conversations allegedly filled with innuendo or personal questions of a sexually suggestive nature, taking place at hotels during conferences, at other officially sanctioned restaurant association events and at the association’s offices. There were also descriptions of physical gestures that were not overtly sexual but that made women who experienced or witnessed them uncomfortable and that they regarded as improper in a professional relationship.

Peter Kilgore, who was the association’s general counsel in the 1990s, and remains in that position today, has declined to comment to POLITICO on whether any settlements existed, saying he cannot discuss personnel matters. 

But one source closely familiar with Cain’s tenure in Washington confirmed that the claims related to allegations of sexual harassment – behavior that disturbed members of the board who became aware of it, as well as the source, who otherwise liked Cain.

“I happen to know there were sealed settlements reached in the plural. I think that anybody who thinks this was a one-time, one-person transgression would be mistaken,” this source said.

* * *

On Oct. 20, POLITICO first approached Gordon, who serves as the campaign’s vice president for communications, about whether Cain had been the subject of complaints of sexual harassment.

After several days of not responding to the question, Gordon emailed on Oct. 24 that any dispute about Cain’s conduct at the restaurant association “was settled amicably among all parties many years ago.” 

“These are old and tired allegations that never stood up to the facts,” Gordon said in an email response. “This was settled amicably among all parties many years ago, and dredging this up now is merely part of a smear campaign meant to discredit a true patriot who is shaking up the political status quo.” 

* * *

As to whether the association under Cain ever paid a monetary settlement to women who had leveled such accusations against him, Gordon referred the question to the restaurant trade group.

* * *

Revelations about the settlements come as members of the association’s board planned to meet this month to talk about ways to use the organization’s clout to boost Cain’s campaign.

The scent of blood is in the water and the media villager sharks are circling. Herman Cain is about to get the close scrutiny from the media that he so far has avoided until he became the "frontrunner." Not for long.