A woman who once served as the top Democratic lawyer on the House Judiciary Committee says Rep. John Conyers once walked around in his underwear during a meeting.
The woman, Malanie Sloan, served as minority counsel for the panel, where Conyers is the most Senior Democrat.
She recalled a time during her employment when she ‘walked into his office having been called up to brief him on something and he was walking around in his underwear,’ ABC news reported.
During the encounter in the Rayburn House Office Building, ‘I was pretty taken aback to see my boss half-dressed,’ Sloan told the Washington Post. ‘I turned on my heel and I left,’ she said.
Melanie Sloan, who once served as the top Democratic lawyer on the House Judiciary Committee says Rep. John Conyers once walked around in his underwear during a meeting
Sloan does not accuse Conyers of sexually harassing her. The House Ethics Committee is investigating Conyers, following publication of a report that Conyers paid out $27,000 from office funds for a staffer who accused him of sexual harassment and wrongful termination.
Sloane accused him of being verbally abusive to her during her employment.
‘There was an occasion where he called me out of a meeting with a bunch of advocates and was screaming at me in the halls, including [about] me not wearing stockings on a 95-degree Washington summer day … while he wasn’t wearing socks,’ she told ABC.
She said of Conyers: ‘I don’t think he was having male staffers babysit his kids and I don’t think male staffers were berated in the same way that I was. ‘Certainly, Congressman Conyers was picking on me and this was well known throughout the committee staff. It was obvious.’
Two women have accused Conyers of sexual harassment. Lawyer Melanie Sloan accuses her of being verbally abusive to her while she worked for him in the 1990s
‘There was nothing I could do to stop it,’ Sloan said. ‘Not going to leadership, not going to my boss, not going to a women’s group, not going to a reporter. I was dismissed and told I must be mentally unstable.’
‘Representative Conyers has never done anything inappropriate to Melanie Sloan,’ his lawyer, Arnold Reed, told the paper.
Sloan went on to work for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, and then to advise the watchdog group American Oversight.
Sloan complained that the abuse she said she suffered was ‘awful’ but not ‘unique.’
‘Capitol Hill is a place where loyalty is valued above all, so if you were to ever to speak badly about a former member of Congress, you can find yourself shunned and find it very difficult to find future employment and I think members of Congress are well aware of that and they prey upon that,’ she said.
Sloan went on to work for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, and then to advise the watchdog group American Oversight
Michigan Representative John Conyers settled a $27,000 complaint in 2015 from a woman who alleged she was fired because she rejected his sexual, according to Buzzfeed News
POWERFUL POSITION: Rep. John Conyers is the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, a status he is being asked to relinquish pending a sexual harassment probe at the House Ethics Committee
The House Ethics Committee announced it had opened an investigation into Conyers,
Conyers, 88, the longest serving member of the House, denied doing anything wrong afterBuzzFeed reported a woman was paid $27,000 from Conyers’ taxpayer-funded congressional office allowance.
The woman’s complaint charges that Conyers repeatedly asked her for sex. In one particularly serious charge, she claims that Conyers asked her to work out of his hotel room, when the Michigan congressman began talking about his sexual desires, according to the report.
She says Conyers then told her to ‘touch it’ – meaning his penis – or find him a woman who would meet his sexual demands, according to Buzzfeed.
The website reported that Conyers’ office paid the woman over $27,000 to settle the complaint under a confidentiality agreement, after filing a complaint in 2014.
BuzzFeed also published affidavits from former staff members who said they had witnessed Conyers touching female staffers inappropriately – rubbing their legs and backs – or requesting sex.
Another ex-staffer sued Conyers for harassment but then withdrew the suit after failing to have the case sealed.