Herman Cain flatly denies the most serious allegation facing him – that he made an unwanted sexual advance toward a female employee at a work event – but POLITICO has learned new details making clear there were urgent discussions of the woman’s accusations at top levels of the National Restaurant Association within hours of when the incident was alleged to have occurred.
The new details—which come from multiple sources independently familiar with the incident at a hotel during a restaurant association event in the late 1990s—put the woman’s account even more sharply at odds with Cain’s emphatic insistence in news media interviews this week that nothing inappropriate happened between the two.
In recent days sources—including associates of the woman and people familiar with operations of the restaurant association—have offered new details of the incident.
The woman in question, roughly 30 years old at the time and working in the National Restaurant Association’s government affairs division, told two people directly at the time that Cain made a sexual overture to her at one of the group’s events, according to the sources familiar with the incident. She was livid and lodged a verbal complaint with an NRA board member that same night, these sources said.
The woman told one of the sources Cain made a suggestion that she felt was overtly sexual in nature and that “she perceived that her job was at risk if she didn’t do it.”
“She is a pretty confident individual, and she was pretty upset,” the source, an acquaintance of the woman, said of her demeanor after the encounter with Cain. “Not crying, but angry.”
She described it as an “unwanted sexual advance” to the other source. The woman took the matter immediately and directly to the board member because “she wanted this fixed,” the source said.
POLITICO has learned the accusation was also later brought to the attention of another board member as well as the restaurant association’s general counsel Peter Kilgore, both of whom are said to have looked into the matter. The woman, who now works in New Jersey, left the NRA in May 1998, shortly after the incident — under an agreement that paid her one-year’s salary, in the mid-$30,000s, sources said. The amount of the settlement was first reported by the New York Times.
She said at the time that she left because “she was not getting along with her bosses,” said another source, a former NRA employee who knew her.
POLITICO has spoken to more than six sources familiar with aspects of the woman’s story. Cain’s campaign this week did not respond to repeated calls and emails seeking comment on the new details related to the woman’s claim. Kilgore also has declined to comment, saying he cannot discuss personnel matters.
POLITICO first reported the existence of the woman’s allegations on Sunday, and that she received a financial payout when she left the organization in 1998. POLITICO shared her name with Cain several days before publication, but, along with other news organizations that have learned her identity, has not publicly identified her for privacy reasons.
In that story, POLITICO described a second woman who left the NRA after making sexual harassment allegations against Cain. That woman received about $45,000 as part of her settlement.
Cain, in public comments over the past few days, has said he is unaware of any formal complaints beyond the one he has discussed in public – which relates to the second woman who received a $45,000 settlement. That woman’s lawyer is now negotiating with the National Restaurant Association over possibly releasing a statement from the woman.
In an interview with Greta van Susteren on Fox News Monday, Cain described the first woman, who is the subject of this story, as “a longer-term employee” who “worked in our governmental affairs department and she worked in the function that managed our political action committee.”
Cain said he didn’t see her much, beyond “casually running into her, like I would run into everybody” in the association’s Washington office. And he asserted: “I have no knowledge that she made a formal complaint or accusation or anything like that.”
Cain also said Tuesday on Fox News that he is “absolutely sure” he didn’t ask the women that were the subject of the POLITICO story to come to his hotel room.
But the sources describe how the woman recounted her allegations against Cain to two members of the restaurant association’s board – sources who include an acquaintance of the woman’s and a person who attended the restaurant association meeting at which the woman lodged her complaint.
The sources say the woman told them Cain invited her to his hotel room at the event, and that both the context and the way Cain phrased the invitation made her feel extremely uncomfortable, even incensed.
After her complaint, Kilgore – who is still serving as the association’s legal counsel today – found out about it and looked into it, according to someone familiar with the association.
Yet, about 10 association board members serving at the time said they were never told of any investigation – or even complaints against Cain.
He resigned as president of the NRA effective June 30, 1999, before his three-year term was up, yet these board members say they were never fully informed as to why. None said they believed his departure had anything to do with the allegations made by the women.
“My understanding is that he decided that he did not want to [be CEO] anymore – whether it was for some kind of personal issue, I did not know what they were,” said Ron Magruder, who chaired the association’s board at the time of Cain’s departure. Magruder told POLITICO he never heard complaints about Cain’s treatment of female employees, adding “I have no reason to question his ethics or integrity in that.”
Cain told van Susteren he never had an inappropriate conversation with any female workers in his hotel room, but he also said of the woman, “I don’t recall having a private conversation with her. But all of the conversations that I had, it could have been. But I don’t recollect.”
The woman recently told her new employer that an embarrassing story might soon break involving her and a GOP presidential candidate. POLITICO initially reached the woman on the phone about two weeks ago, when she declined to comment, and has not been able to reach her since then.
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