Paging Elizabeth Warren: it turns out Bernie Sanders has an ugly NDA scandal too
Yesterday Palmer Report pointed out that while Elizabeth Warren keeps correctly slam dunking Mike Bloomberg for his worsening scandals, she’s still largely going out of her way to avoid laying a glove on Bernie Sanders over his worsening scandals. During the debate she didn’t hit him over his Fidel Castro scandal, his vicious attacks on the Democratic Party, or anything else. But things radically changed today, and now Warren has a decision to make.
Warren has been hitting Bloomberg the hardest over the nondisclosure agreements that he’s had multiple female employees sign over the years. He’s claiming that these were just comparatively minor offenses. But she browbeat him into agreeing to release the women from their NDAs, so that if any of them want to come forward and reveal the true seriousness of the offenses, they can.
Today the Associated Press reported that Bernie Sanders’ quasi-Super PAC “Our Revolution” fired an African-American political consultant in 2018, and then settled with her out of court when she sued for racial discrimination. The consultant then agreed to sign a nondisclosure agreement, preventing her from publicly discussing the details and/or seriousness of the discrimination.
Uh oh. How is this any different from Mike Bloomberg having women sign nondisclosure agreements after they made accusations of inappropriate behavior against him? It’s important to note that the accusations of racism appear to be directed at Bernie Sanders’ highest ranking “Our Revolution” employees and not at Bernie himself, which is a major distinction. That said, whatever went on with the “Our Revolution” racism scandal, it was ugly enough that the Bernie’s group apparently paid her off with an out of court settlement just to keep her quiet about it.
The question right now isn’t whether Bloomberg’s NDA scandal or Bernie’s NDA scandal is worse. We don’t know the answer to that, because we don’t have the details of what really went on in either scandal. The question is whether Elizabeth Warren is going to hold Bernie to the same standard that she applied to Bloomberg, and pressure Bernie to let the former consultant out of her NDA.
Elizabeth Warren is in a tough position. She’s friends with Bernie Sanders and she’s ideologically aligned with him, whereas she clearly thinks Mike Bloomberg’s political stances are corrupt. She’ll also get eaten alive by Bernie’s most overzealous fans if she goes after him too hard. But at this point she’s got to do it, right? Warren is one of the most forthright people in all of politics. She knows she can’t treat Bernie’s NDA scandal differently than Bloomberg’s NDA scandal, just because Bernie is her ally.
