Kirsten Gillibrand didn't fire a senior aide over sexual harassment accusations — until Politico started asking questions

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) built her political career on fighting sexual misconduct. But that push apparently didn't extend to her own office, one former aide claims.

As the 2020 candidate continued to push for Congress to adopt her bill to curb internal harassment last summer, an aide resigned after saying the senator ignored her claims of sexual harassment by a more senior staffer. Gillibrand's office investigated and "found evidence" of the senior aide's "inappropriate comments," but didn't fire him, Politico reports.

The anonymous aide, a woman in her mid-20s, tells Politico the harassment from longtime Gillibrand aide Abbas Malik started when he was told he'd be supervising her. "A decade her senior and married," Abbas "repeatedly made unwelcome advances" toward the younger staffer, she tells Politico. The anonymous woman also said Malik "regularly made crude, misogynistic remarks in the office," which several former Gillibrand staffers backed up.

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Yet despite the aide detailing all of this in a lengthy resignation letter obtained by Politico, Malik kept his job. Gillibrand's office says it did investigate the claims, but Politico says it "left out key former staffers." In a statement to Politico, Gillibrand's office said its first probe didn't uncover evidence that met "the standard for sexual harassment."

After seeing Politico's findings, Gillibrand's office started a new probe into Malik's behavior and found what it called "never-before reported and deeply troubling comments allegedly made by" him. The office dismissed him last week. Malik did not respond to a request for comment. Read more at Politico.

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Kathryn is a graduate of Syracuse University, with degrees in magazine journalism and information technology, along with hours to earn another degree after working at SU's independent paper The Daily Orange. She's currently recovering from a horse addiction while living in New York City, and likes to share her extremely dry sense of humor on Twitter.