Two members of the U.S. Home of Representatives, together with entrepreneur Elon Musk, are calling for the names of federal lawmakers whose places of work have used tax {dollars} to settle claims of sexual and different sorts of harassment to be made public.
Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., printed an X put up final week stating that “Congress has secretly paid out more than $17 million of your money to quietly settle charges of harassment (sexual and other forms) in Congressional offices.”
The $17 million statistic cited by Massie comes from a report launched by the Workplace of Compliance of the U.S. Congress in 2017, on the peak of the #MeToo motion outlined by allegations of sexual misconduct implicating highly effective males. The report famous that the Congressional Accountability Act of 1995 established “an account of the Office in the Treasury on the United States for the payment of awards and settlements.”
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In response to the info compiled within the report, a complete of 272 settlements had been paid between 1997 and 2017. The mixed whole of the settlements quantities to greater than $17.2 million. The report didn’t disclose which workplace the settlements originated in.
The variety of settlements reached on an annual foundation ranged from a low of six in 1997 and 1999 to a excessive of 25 in 2007. Whole settlement quantities ranged from simply over $39,000 in 1997 to greater than $4 million in 2007.
Almost a decade has handed for the reason that report’s publication, which means that it’s doubtless that extra settlements have been reached since then.
“Don’t you think we should release the names of the Representatives,” Massie tweeted.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., shared Massie’s put up and expressed help for his proposal.
“I want to release the congressional sexual slush fund list. Tax payers should have never had to pay for that. Along with all the other garbage they should not have to pay for.”
Elon Musk, the CEO of X, SpaceX and Tesla, additionally agreed. In a reply to Massie’s X put up, Musk wrote, “Whoa? Yeah.”
The dialogue about making the identities of Congress members who settled sexual harassment claims prior to now 20 years comes as President-elect Donald Trump has tasked Musk with co-leading a newly shaped Division of Authorities Effectivity that can function independently from the federal authorities.
Trump mentioned the aim of the Division of Authorities Effectivity is to “pave the way for my Administration to dismantle Government Bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies — essential to the ‘Save America’ movement” and to “drive out the massive waste and fraud which exists throughout our annual $6.5 Trillion Dollars of Government Spending.”
Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, a former presidential candidate additionally tapped to co-lead DOGE, elaborated on their imaginative and prescient for the company in a Wall Road Journal op-ed.
Whereas the 2 didn’t explicitly determine the harassment settlements as expenditures they’d placed on the chopping block, Musk’s assertion in help of constructing the names public and the suggestion of members of Congress that taxpayer cash ought to not go to such funds increase questions on how for much longer the established order will proceed.
Ryan Foley is a reporter for The Christian Submit. He may be reached at: [email protected]
“Well bless their hearts.”
