ABC News’ Huma Khan, Devin Dwyer and Susan Archer report:
Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain’s campaign is staunchly denying reports that the former chief executive of Godfather’s Pizza was involved in a sexual harassment case, saying the allegations are “questionable.”
Cain’s chief of staff, Mark Block, said on MSNBC today that the GOP candidate “has never sexually harassed anyone. Period. End of story.”
“Every negative word and accusation in the article is sourced to a series of unnamed or anonymous sources. Questionable at best,” Block said of the Politico report, which found that Cain was accused of inappropriate behavior by two women during his tenure as National Restaurant Association head from 1996 to 1999.
Per 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.”
Block said he is not aware of any cash settlement, and maintained Cain’s innocence.
“Mr. Cain has never sexually harassed anyone, period,” he said, adding that when he asked his boss of the allegations, he said “the story is not true. Bring me some facts. Bring me the accuser.”
Cain, 65, will address the allegations today, Block said.
When confronted on the trail Sunday about the report, Cain refused to comment, even asking the reporter whether he had ever been accused of sexual harassment. His spokesman dubbed the accusations “garbage” and “a total distraction.”
Cain is in Washington, D.C. today, where he is first speaking about his 9-9-9 tax plan at the conservative American Enterprise Institute and then later at a luncheon at the National Press Club.
At the AEI event this morning, Cain refused to answer a question about the charges, saying that “I will go by the ground rules that my host have set,” which is discussing just his 9-9-9 plan.
According to Politico, the conversations between Cain and the two women who accused him of inappropriate behavior were “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,” the article stated.
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