‘In It for Herself’: Former Katie Porter Staffer Says California Dem’s Senate Run Motivated by ‘Fame’ and ‘Power’

Ryan Mills
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A former staff member for California congresswoman Katie Porter says that she believes the Democratic darling, who announced a 2024 run for Senate this week, is increasingly driven not by a desire to serve her constituents but by a desire to grow her own fame and power.

Sasha Georgiades, a Navy veteran who worked for two years as a Wounded Warrior fellow in Porter’s office, started calling out her former boss in late December, accusing Porter in media interviews and on social media of lashing out at her for her Covid-19 diagnosis and of running a toxic office where staff members are regularly screamed at and belittled.

In an interview with National Review after Porter announced her Senate run on Tuesday, Georgiades doubled down on her accusations and questioned Porter’s motives. She said she doesn’t believe Porter is “in it for the people anymore,” and is instead “in it for herself.”

“I think she likes the attention. I think she likes being a well-known name, and being a Democratic sweetheart,” Georgiades said. “I think the fame and the power, with anybody, can turn somebody in a direction that they may not have been before. I think it’s becoming less and less about her actually helping, and more and more about her ego.”

Georgiades first came forward with her concerns about Porter’s behavior in December when she shared text-message exchanges between her and the congresswoman with Dear White Staffers, an Instagram and Twitter account that exposes Congress’s worst bosses. In the exchange, Porter accused Georgiades of giving her Covid-19 and banned her from the office for the rest of Georgiades’s fellowship.

Georgiades’s account was followed by anonymous posts from other alleged former Porter staffers who shared similar bad experiences.

One anonymous poster, who claimed to be a former Porter campaign staffer who had “multiple panic attacks” while working for the congresswoman, said Porter “was always screaming at her staffers over the phone during her fundraising call time.” Another alleged former Porter staffer wrote that Porter is “prone to fits of rage, regularly disparages anyone who even slightly disagrees with her or displeases her, and is incredibly arrogant, mean spirited and petty.”

It’s unclear if the accounts from Georgiades and the anonymous posters are part of a pattern or if they are outliers. National Review reached out to more than three dozen current and former Porter staffers this week, and most did not reply to phone or social-media messages.

One current staffer who spoke to National Review on background disputed the accounts, and instead described Porter as “funny, fun, and smart, and there for the right reasons.”

“She really cares about her staff and wants them to do well and go places,” the staffer said, but acknowledged that “this office is hard.” That is particularly true because Porter represents a battleground district and holds a seat that until recently had been solidly Republican.

“There’s a lot of work. There’s high expectations,” the staffer said. “When you’re in an office that every two years you have to run for reelection to represent people in Congress and hope to make their lives better, you have to show that you’re doing things.”

Gage Sitzmann, who was Porter’s first Wounded Warrior fellow, also disputed the portrayals of the congresswoman as a bad boss. “It couldn’t be further from the truth,” he said.

Sitzmann, a combat veteran who was injured during Operation Enduring Freedom, called Porter a “phenomenal mentor” and “the brightest boss I’ve ever had.”

“I don’t really understand where it’s coming from,” he said of Georgiades’s criticisms. Sitzmann said he’s met Georgiades twice, but doesn’t really know her political background.

Raised on an Iowa farm, Porter is a lawyer specializing in bankruptcy and commercial law; at Harvard, she studied with Elizabeth Warren, the future senator. She became a law professor at the University of California–Irvine, and in 2012, she was appointed by California’s then–attorney general Kamala Harris to be the state’s independent monitor of the National Mortgage Settlement, a $25 billion settlement with the county’s five largest mortgage servicers over foreclosure misconduct.

Porter, a single mother of three, was first elected to Congress in 2018, winning an upset victory against Republican representative Mimi Walters in Orange County, a onetime GOP stronghold that had been known as Ronald Reagan country. A glowing portrait of Porter published in the San Francisco Chronicle in 2020 identified her as a Democratic rising star, and a “straight shooter” who “possesses a finely tuned hypocrisy detector.”

Porter has grown her national profile in part by having sharp exchanges with witnesses in congressional hearings and by using a white board as a visual prop. Porter apparently employs that same aggressive style in her private dealings: She berated Irvine, Calif., mayor Farrah Khan in a series of text messages after the man she lives with was arrested for punching a Trump supporter at a townhall event, an incident that Porter believed was mishandled by local authorities.

“I am a United States congresswoman. You can lecture me on professionalism. And see what happens,” she wrote in a text message obtained by Fox News.

Porter also has been known to engage in an occasional political stunt. In 2019, Porter wore a Halloween Batgirl costume on the House floor on the day of a vote on then-president Donald Trump’s impeachment. This month, while Republicans struggled to elect a House speaker, Porter read the self-help book The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck.  She wore an orange dress to match the book’s orange jacket cover.

“I feel like that’s a prime example of, is this who you really want representing you, because now it’s about publicity stunts. Now it’s about funding,” Georgiades said.

Georgiades started working for Porter as a Wounded Warrior fellow in the summer of 2020, during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. She worked out of the district office in Irvine, Calif. She said she went into politics with a desire to help active-duty military members and veterans, and didn’t know much about Porter when she started.

“I figured if she was willing enough to have a Wounded Warrior fellow in her office, then she was willing enough to hear the issues they were going through,” Georgiades said.

Things didn’t start well. Georgiades said she was supposed to have a call with Porter at the start of the fellowship. “She completely missed our first call, just kind of forgot about it,” she said.

“I was disillusioned, I guess, pretty quickly, to be honest,” Georgiades said.

Georgiades said that Porter showed little interest in the veteran-focused legislation that she was pushing for. She said she felt like Porter’s “female veteran token.” Porter was mostly focused on legislation that would build her brand as a leader who would call out corporate wrongdoing and stick up for the little guy, Georgiades said.

“There was just a lot of focus on her brand, her brand, her brand,” Georgiades said. “And so, that really started to set in for me that it wasn’t about people, it wasn’t about actually helping. It was, she has a brand that she wants to live up to.”

According to Georgiades: Porter wouldn’t support good legislation if it was written by a lawmaker she didn’t like. She badmouthed other Democrats and the Democratic Party. She once dismissed a sexual-harassment allegation by one of her staffers. She would sometimes try to be edgy, telling off-color jokes about race and sexuality that some staffers found offensive. And she would lash out at her staffers if they didn’t complete tasks to her liking.

“Nobody should be getting yelled at like that, anywhere,” Georgiades said, adding that other than a small number of Porter’s favorite staffers, “everybody was fair game.”

Georgiades said she got along well with most of her former colleagues, and they would commiserate. “The majority of people in that office have had troubles with her,” she said.

Sitzmann, who worked in the office before Georgiades, said he never saw the kind of behavior Georgiades has described. “Regarding her yelling at staffers, I never once saw that,” he said.

One of the anonymous posters on Dear White Staffers wrote that Porter’s first Wounded Warrior fellow — Sitzmann — also “left under acrimonious circumstances.” But Sitzmann said it’s not true. He left on his own accord, for family reasons, and he received a letter of recommendation that allowed him to get his next job, he said.

“That’s actually incredibly frustrating,” he said of the anonymous post about his departure.

Sitzmann said he stays in contact with some of his former colleagues in Porter’s office, and “it seems like everything is going great, and everything is going smoothly there.”

He said of the names that have been floated as potential Democratic candidates for the Senate seat — currently held by Dianne Feinstein — that Porter is running for, he would support Porter.

“I think she’s going to make a great candidate,” he said.

Georgiades now works as a consultant, and said she has no intention of reentering politics. Her fellowship ended in August, just weeks after Porter accused her of giving her Covid and barred her from returning to the office. Georgiades said it’s not even clear Porter got Covid from her.

The day of the alleged exposure, she had felt sore, and assumed it was connected to exercise. When she woke the next morning, she said, she “felt like I got hit by a truck,” took a Covid test, and sent the positive result to the district director. Porter accused her of violating office protocols that staffers should test for Covid at the first sign they’re not feeling well.

Georgiades said Porter tested positive several days after their contact, and it’s not clear she was the one who made Porter sick. In her time working with Porter, the congresswoman had never really been hypervigilant about Covid, and others in the office had tested positive, she said.

“I was sorry. I don’t want to expose someone unintentionally ever,” Georgiades said, but added, “I wasn’t the first person she’d been around with it. I was just the first person that was around her when she caught it.”

Porter was the first candidate to announce that she will be running for Feinstein’s seat in 2024. Feinstein, who at 89 has faced questions about her mental fitness, has not said if she plans to seek reelection. Other names floated as potential Democratic candidates for the seat are representatives Adam Schiff and Ro Khanna, and this week Representative Barbara Lee announced she’s running; unlike Porter, they represent safe, Democratic districts. Winning the Senate seat is likely attractive for Porter, in part because it would allow her to avoid facing reelection every two years in a swing district.

Porter narrowly defeated Republican Scott Baugh in November. Her Senate candidacy could open an opportunity for Republicans to win back her House seat.

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