Democrats continue to blast Republican Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine for the way he handled a sexual harassment case in his office. The big questions are if, how and why DeWine himself got involved in the investigation. Ohio Public Radio's Jo Ingles reports.
Ohio Democratic Party Chairman Chris Redfern says the attorney general got involved with an investigation into sexual harassment accusations against one of DeWine’s friends and top employees. Redfern says DeWine demanded the name of the intern who made the accusation so he could shut the probe down.
Redfern - How can anyone in Mike DeWine’s office feel confident that they can report misconduct now when they know that the guy in charge of the office is going to come, find out who you are and pressure you to either be quiet or provide the information he needs to kill the investigation?
DeWine says he thinks Democrats are despicable for making a political issue out of this. He says he asked for the name of the person filing the complaint after the Franklin County prosecutor determined there wasn’t enough evidence to prosecute. DeWine says he wanted to get to the bottom of it.
DeWine – I’m in charge of the office. Not only do I have a legal obligation to provide a good, safe workplace, I have a moral obligation. I have four daughters. I would not want any of them to go into an environment where there was a sexual predator there so I did everything I could to make sure that was not the case. And we turned over every single stone we could find and were not able to come up with anything.
The intern who initially made this complaint has since found employment in Cleveland and did not cooperate with investigators during the investigation.
