by Frank Holmes, reporter
The leading liberal think tank in the United States is deep in embarrassing allegations that it swept sexual harassment under the rug and shamed the victim.
A former leader in the billionaire George Soros-funded Center for American Progress (CAP) harassed multiple women who worked for him, according to internal documents and victim’s testimony.
Instead of firing him, CAP let him go to another job with an up-and-coming Democrat politician.
The liberal advocacy group isolated his victim to the point that she quit – and it didn’t even tell his new employer about his crude behavior!
This is huge, because CAP is the premier liberal think tank in Washington. It’s tied to Soros, the Clintons, and every major Democrat in the capital.
To make the allegation more serious, it surfaced on the liberal BuzzFeed website, which performed an in-depth investigation. Here’s the story:
In 2014, CAP hired a man named Benton Strong, who ran communications for the Washington Democrat Party. Strong ran CAP’s “War Room,” the activist arm dedicated to pushing Soros’ policies on the whole country, in 2014.
But policy wasn’t all he was pushing.
At the office, Strong asked two women whether they had ever had a man expose himself them or masturbate in front of them. One of the women had a traumatic experience and broke down in tears in front of everyone.
Strong laughed his head off at her.
Then, Strong sent a former co-worker, who asked to be called “Mary,” a series of texts about performing oral sex on her, and whether white or black girls were better at performing it.
Maybe CAP was working on a new “position” paper.
It turned out, Strong had a history of harassing and threatening women – even sending a blood-stained letter to a woman who broke up with him in college in 2007.
That probably made him the perfect employee for CAP, which was founded by former President Bill Clinton’s former chief of staff, John Podesta, who chaired former first lady Hillary’s 2016 presidential campaign.
CAP’s union went to management, which dragged its feet. Ultimately, it held an “inclusion training” in 2016, but the trainer focused on “diversity,” and the discussion about sexual harassment was “minimal.”
Instead, it cranked up the pressure on “Mary” and other female victims.
“On several occasions, myself and others on the team felt as if reporting had been a mistake,” Mary wrote, talking about “retaliation … and treatment by supervisors” that drove her out the door.
She’s the victim, but she lost her job.
According to the employee union, CAP was guilty of “perpetuating a hostile work environment” for female victims of sexual aggression.
So much for its pro-woman, feminist image!
Management finally looked into Strong’s behavior and escorted him out of the building in 2016 – but he was already leaving for a new job with the mayor of Seattle.
To add insult to injury, CAP blamed the victim.
“We did not conduct a full investigation,” CAP said, “due to the repeated expressed wishes of the complainant to not have people know what happened or have her name leaked.”
Why would she be worried about having her name leaked? Did CAP threaten to leak her name as part of the retaliation?
CAP let Strong waltz out of the office and into a cushy new job in his hometown – and it didn’t even tell his new employer about the harassment.
That was “especially” appropriate “given that we did not do a full investigation at the urging of the complainant,” CAP told BuzzFeed.
So, reading between the lines: When Mary went to HR, someone at CAP raised the possibility of having her name leaked, humiliating her. Since she buckled under to her employer’s pressure, CAP didn’t do a full investigation. And since there was no investigation, Strong got away scot-free and started his high-paid job with a clean slate.
“Mary” finally went public when CAP did nothing.
This is hypocrisy on a massive scale. CAP has published four separate policy papers on sexual harassment and, after President Donald Trump’s election, CAP President Neera Tanden tweeted:
I don't think the country has understood how psychologically wounding it was to so many women that Trump won after the Access Hollywood tape https://t.co/asbo4Z1uWR
— Neera Tanden🌻 (@neeratanden) April 2, 2017
“CAP’s culture obscures its mission,” Mary wrote – that is, it’s a completely hypocritical mess.
But it’s a wealthy and influential one. Soros pledged $2 million in “start-up money” for CAP in 2002. Now it has $50 million in revenue in 2015 – and it’s growing by leaps and bounds.
Tanden makes a whopping $315,000 a year.
Other CAP “scholars” and alumni include notables like CNN’s Van Jones, Trump impeachment funder Tom Steyer, and former Secretary of State Madeline Albright.
And Strong, of course.
We can’t help but wonder: How many other liberal superstars did CAP cover up for?
Frank Holmes is a reporter for The Horn News. He is a veteran journalist and an outspoken conservative that talks about the news that was in his weekly article, “On The Holmes Front.”