Cain Accuser Won’t Go Public
At least one of the women involved in the allegations against Herman Cain won’t be telling her story in public:
Joel P. Bennett, the lawyer for one of the women who has made accusations against Mr. Cain, said that his client had decided not to go public or to make a public statement herself in an effort to shield herself from the media frenzy swirling around the situation.
“She’s not going to affirmatively make any public statements or public appearances about the case, everything will be through me,” Mr. Bennett said. “She has a life to live and a career, and she doesn’t want to become another Anita Hill.”
But Mr. Bennett said he would send on Thursday a proposed statement to the National Restaurant Association in which he would make clear that his client’s version of the events between herself and Mr. Cain were different from the version that the presidential candidate has offered.
He said he needs the association to agree that the statement would not violate a nondisclosure agreement on his client when she left the group in the late 1990s.
“She certainly wanted to say something counter to what Mr. Cain has been saying,” he said, adding that he hoped the statement would help restore her reputation and validate the claims she made at the time.
“As of now, my expectation is that it will not go into details about the incident. She does not want to do that,” he said. “This is a statement that she feels sets forth her position in a fair and honest way.”
This isn’t really fair to Cain on some level. You can’t cross-examine a piece of paper written by the attorney for a woman who won’t go public and won’t reveal her name, after all.
If no one knows who this woman is, how has her reputation been damaged to the point that it needs restoration through this statement?
Cain elected to be the focus of intense public scrutiny when he decided to run for president. Cain also elected to violate the NDA and begin disparaging the woman in the national media. The woman is under no obligation to upend her life in order to make Cain’s decisions easier on him.
@Stormy Dragon:
And as long as that’s the case any argument that starts with the premise that Herman Cain sexually harassed anyone, without providing evidence therefore, is just making stuff up.
@Doug Mataconis:
The charge that someone is making things up, is a positive claim. It’s not the woman’s responsibility to provide the evidence to rebut it, it’s Cain’s responsibility to provide the evidence to prove it.
Again, just because he chooses to slander this woman in the national media by accusing her of a crime does not obligate her to submit herself to a media firestorm to stop it.
@Stormy Dragon:
How can you possibly conclude that Person A sexually harassed anyone when the person who made those charges won’t go public or detail what was allegedly done?
I’m no Cain fan, and as far as I’m concerned his incompetent crisis management in this situation is enough reason to dismiss him from the stage, but accusing him of doing something when you don’t even know what it is strikes me as patently unfair.
accusing him of doing something when you don’t even know what it is strikes me as patently unfair.
Has the person in question thus far accused Cain of anything other than offering a different version of events than hers?
Mantis,
Or so her lawyer says. In any event, yelling “liar” without saying why you think someone is lying doesn’t really lend to the credibility of the person doing the yelling.
Doug,
Cain could (and I think should) take affirmative steps to make all of the NRA investigation and the settlement public and waive any confidentiality (or urge NRA to do so). The fact that he hasn’t makes it appear that there may be a fire near that smoke.
The fact that an accuser does not want to become public is pretty sensible in an enviorment where she would be pilloried by the likes of Rush Limbaugh, et al. However, her limited statement serves as a counter to Cain’s public denials.
And while you can’t cross-exam a piece iof paper, presumably it will have some greater details that could be attacked or confirmed.
In any event, yelling “liar” without saying why you think someone is lying doesn’t really lend to the credibility of the person doing the yelling.
They need to be released from the agreement by the NRA to offer details, which Bennett claims she would like to do. You know this. Why are you pretending you don’t?
@Doug Mataconis:
She did go public, decades ago, at which point a settlement was reached, which included (among other things) that neither party talk about it in the future. The fact that Cain apparently doesn’t think the rules apply to him and he can just ignore the settlement agreement because it’s convenient for him to do so right now doesn’t incline me favorably toward his side.
There has to be a way to get the facts of the complaint out there without revealing the woman’s name. I don’t blame her for not wanting to come forward. I wouldn’t like to be inserted into a presidential campaign, either.