New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham, a Democrat, has paid out at least $62.5K to a male staffer who accused her of an alleged sexual assault, by grabbing his crotch and laughing at him.
Campaign finance documents filed on Monday revealed that Governor Lujan Grisham’s campaign paid the money in various installments to a law firm on behalf of James Hallinan, a staffer who had previously worked for Lujan Grisham, a Democrat, during her campaign to take the New Mexico governorship back in 2018. The payments have been provided in five monthly installments of $12,500, from November last year to March, listed as “legal expenses.” It is not clear if there are any more payments to come.
Around a year after he left Lujan Grisham’s campaign, Hallinan claimed on Twitter that Lujan Grisham had sexually assaulted him. He alleged that the then-congresswoman had poured a bottle of water on his crotch, and then grabbed his genitals in front of other staffers who were watching the situation unfold, and then proceeded to laugh at him.
“A governor… is not above the law for her sexual and physical abuse of employees including (me!!!) I’ll talk more when I return to the country,” Hallinan tweeted. He also alleged that Dominic Gabello, the then campaign manager for Lujan Grisham, who now work as a senior advisor in the New Mexico Governor’s office, had tried to talk him out of reporting the incident when it happened at the time.
Jared Leopold, the campaign spokesman for Lujan Grisham, said in a written statement to the Albuquerque Journal that the payments were part of a settlement, which resolved “numerous dubious and disputed potential claims made by Mr. Hallinan arising from his employment in 2018 with the campaign organization and his subsequent search for employment.”
All parties accused “strenuously deny that there is any merit or truth to Mr. Hallinan’s claims, including his claims about difficulty finding or keeping work after the campaign,” Leopold continued in the statement. “They reached a settlement in order to avoid the continuing distraction and significant expense of possible litigation and allow them to concentrate on working for the people of New Mexico during this pandemic,” he concluded.
Rachel Berlin Benjamin, an attorney for the Buckley Beal law firm that received the payments and represents Hallinan said that he and the Governor have “resolved any differences or issues to their satisfaction,” and that she was not able to provide any further details.
National File reported last year that Lujan Grisham announced she was forming a council for “racial justice” composed of “black leaders,” headed up by a “racial justice” czar:
Grisham held a press conference on Thursday in which she ranted about “institutional racism” and the “original sin of slavery”… The Council for Racial Justice and accompanying racial justice czar working out of the governor’s office will be tasked with the directive to “monitor state institutions and hold them accountable for ending systemic racism.”