A second top adviser to Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, who has made advocacy for women and the #MeToo movement central to her 2020 Democratic presidential campaign, departed over an allegation of sexual harassment, the Washington Examiner can reveal.
Marc Brumer, 32, the New York Democrat’s communications director, resigned from Gillibrand’s staff in spring 2017 after making at least one sexist remark that distressed and offended a more junior woman who worked as a scheduler, two former Gillibrand aides told the Washington Examiner.
But Brumer continued to be paid despite his misconduct. He was not dismissed and was kept on Gillibrand’s staff. He remained on the senator’s payroll “for about three months after the incident, even though he didn’t do any work,” one former aide said.
Details of the exit, the result of a Washington Examiner investigation, emerged after Gillibrand’s military adviser was fired for sexually harassing a junior female aide in July 2018. Abbas Malik, 34, remained as one of Gillibrand’s closest advisers even after his accuser resigned in protest at how her allegations against him had been dealt with.
“As I said at the time, I am sorry that words used during a heated debate offended a colleague,” Brumer told the Washington Examiner. “By then, I had already been planning my departure and preparing to seek another opportunity. I resigned and ensured a smooth transition.”
Brumer is understood to have told friends that while his comment was perhaps colorful and could have been seen as inappropriate, it was not intended to be sexist or to upset the scheduler.
[Related: Gillibrand kept top military aide in place despite sexual misconduct allegations against him]
The second instance of sexual misconduct by male officials in her inner circle is a major blow to the presidential campaign of Gillibrand, an outspoken supporter of the #MeToo movement and a campaigner against sexual misconduct in the military who has built much of her White House bid on her approach to gender issues.
In both instances, the more senior male harasser remained on Gillibrand’s staff despite their misconduct being substantiated. The scheduler, like the first victim, is understood to have left Gillibrand’s office before her harasser.
One of the former Gillibrand staffers told the Washington Examiner it was common to hear inappropriate sexual conversations in the workplace.
A spokesperson for Gillibrand’s office told the Washington Examiner: “Here are the facts: this employee was reprimanded immediately, he offered his resignation and it was accepted. He was never in the office again and was told to work from home to transition his responsibilities after his deputy was elevated to his job and began three months of paid maternity leave. The Senator was proud to promote an outstanding woman from within the office prior to her taking leave.”
Brumer, who has been married since 2015, worked for Gillibrand for more than two years and went on to land a role as a vice president of the Herald Group, a public relations and communications firm.
He is a graduate of Fordham who also received a master’s degree in elections and campaign management there. Before being hired by Gillibrand, Brumer worked for former Rep. Dan Maffei, D-N.Y., the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and Rev. Al Sharpton’s civil rights organization, the National Action Network. Malik had been with Gillibrand for eight years
His victim did not respond to the Washington Examiner‘s requests for comment. The Washington Examiner does not generally identify victims of sexual misconduct.
[Also read: Gillibrand’s office restructures aide’s role in wake of sexual harassment investigation]
Malik was abruptly pushed out this month following media inquiries into the married Iraq War veteran’s conduct, which reportedly included unwanted advances and saying that a woman “couldn’t get laid unless she was raped.”
One of the former Gillibrand staffers told the Washington Examiner that what Brumer said was far from uncommon. “It was so frequent and sanctioned basically by the chief [of staff],” the ex-aide said. “I heard so many off-color remarks from, like, everybody in the office. … It was so common, that it was just like, so you’re firing someone? Why is today the day? Because you’re running for president, or [a journalist] is reaching out to you?”
The former staffer said Gillibrand knew what happened in her office and how complaints were dealt with. “She’s most definitely aware of what goes on in the office. She’s most definitely aware of what people complain about, or [when they] file a complaint,” the aide said.
Gillibrand, a two-term senator who on Sunday dropped the pretense of an exploratory committee and announced she was running for the Democratic Party’s 2020 presidential nomination, led the initial push to reform sexual harassment and assault policies on Capitol Hill with Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Calif.
In December 2017, she called on former Sen. Al Franken to resign after eight women, among them one congressional staffer, accused him of inappropriate behavior, including groping and forcible kissing. He has denied most of the allegations made against him.
A month earlier in November 2017, she suggested former President Bill Clinton should have stepped down in the 1990s over his extramarital affair with Monica Lewinsky — provoking the ire of many Clinton supporters.
Gillibrand shared her own experiences with sexual misconduct in her 2014 autobiography, Off the Sidelines. In the book, she described a male senator — later identified as Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, who died in 2012 — as taking her by the waist and telling her not to “lose too much weight” from a pregnancy because he preferred his “girls chubby.”
She wrote: “He meant well, but those words didn’t go over as he planned.”
