$40K penalty in harassment case has been paid, says aide to ex-U.S. Rep. Mark Meadows
A $40,000 penalty by the House Ethics Committee against former U.S. Rep. Mark Meadows has been paid in full, a Meadows adviser said Thursday. The fine stemmed from Meadows’ handling of sexual harassment allegations against a former Congressional aide.
Last Friday was the deadline for Meadows to have paid the money to the U.S. Treasury. The ethics committee investigation found he had overpaid the former staffer after he was no longer working out of the congressional offices.
“The payments have already been made in full and the case was closed,” said Ben Williamson, Meadows’ former Congressional spokesman, in an emailed statement to The News & Observer. Williamson is now a communications adviser at the White House, where Meadows became chief of staff seven weeks ago.
Williamson provided the statement after Tom Rust, the staff director and chief counsel for the committee, declined to comment on whether the fine was paid or the case had been closed.
Rust also declined to produce records showing the status of the case and did not offer an explanation why the committee could not discuss it.
Williamson also did not provide documents showing the outcome. Meadows, 60, who represented the 11th district in Western North Carolina for seven years before becoming President Donald Trump’s fourth chief of staff, declined to be interviewed about the payments.
U.S. Rep. Ted Deutch, a Florida Democrat who is chairman of the committee, did not respond to a request from The N&O for information through his spokesman, Jason Atterman, who referred all questions back to Rust.
No confirmation from Treasury
The U.S. Treasury has not provided confirmation of the payments, after email requests from The N&O.
The required payment stems from the ethics committee’s investigation into Meadows’ handling of sexual harassment complaints several female staffers had made against his former chief of staff, Kenny West.
In 2014, Meadows banned West from his Congressional offices and from having any contact with female staff. Meadows told the committee he eventually demoted West to a senior adviser role, but continued to pay him at the same salary for ten weeks before accepting his resignation in 2015. Meadows then paid West an additional two months’ salary as a severance, which the committee also said was improper.
West became Meadows’ chief of staff in January 2013 after losing to Meadows in the 2012 primary for the open Congressional seat.
The ethics committee issued a letter of reproval to Meadows in November 2018 and ordered him to repay the $40,625 that represented the total pay to which West wasn’t entitled.
“The Committee directs Representative Meadows to repay that amount to the U.S. Treasury no later than May 15, 2020, and provide proof of repayment to the Committee by that date,” the report said.
A director with a government watchdog group said the ethics committee’s lack of transparency over whether the money has been paid and the status of the case was strange, given the committee’s report is public.
Question of transparency
“I get that we are living in an age where people are not as transparent as they once were in government, but it just strikes me as a little odd that they would not want people to know that he’s squared everything away,” said Jordan Libowitz, communications director for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.
Libowitz said there is no rule or law that prevents the committee from reporting the status of the case. The committee, as well as Congress in general, is exempt from federal laws that would compel them to produce public records. In the past the committee has reported payments following ethics investigations.
In 1998, the committee reported that House Speaker Newt Gingrich had completed payment of a $300,000 penalty for violations of House rules.
“Gingrich made the final payment of $150,000, the committee said, and ‘has now satisfied in full’ the obligation imposed in January 1997,” The Associated Press reported at the time.
It’s important to know whether Meadows paid the penalty because once he left the House to become Trump’s chief of staff, the committee lost any ability to collect, Libowitz said.
“House ethics loses jurisdiction the day he leaves his congressional office, and loses any enforcement ability,” Libowitz said.
That’s how former U.S. Rep. Jean Schmidt, an Ohio Republican, ended up not having to pay the bulk of roughly $500,000 in legal fees that the committee determined in 2011 she had improperly received from a Turkish-American group, the Dayton Daily News reported. She had lost re-election the following year.
This story was originally published May 21, 2020 at 5:12 PM.
