Fired GOP Staffer Threatens To Out Legislators’ Extramarital Affairs [View all]

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.care2.com/causes/fired-gop-staffer-threatens-to-out-legislators-extramarital-affairs.html

by Robin Marty
March 15, 2012
11:00 pm



There are some Minnesota legislators shaking in their boots tonight. A former legislative aide, fired after his boss, the Senate Majority Leader, stepped down from leadership after admitting to an adulterous affair, is now accusing the state’s Republican party of gender discrimination. His argument? That if he were a female subordinate of a male boss, the affair would have gone unreported.

And in order to prove his case, he’s announced that legislators sleeping with their staffers will be deposed. “In preparation for the lawsuit, [ex-staffer Michael] Brodkorb’s legal team is prepared to dig deep into the romantic lives of legislators and staffers. ‘He intends to depose all of the female legislative staff employees who participated in intimate relationships, as well as the legislators who were party to those intimate relationships, in support of his claims of gender discrimination,’ his attorney said in the document setting up Brodkorb’s reason for a possible wrongful dismissal lawsuit.”

But is the suit an actual case of gender discrimination, or is it an excuse to expose a bunch of hypocritical politicians who are also having affairs? The MNGOP is accusing him of “extortion” saying that he is using his case to try and wheedle $500,000 in damages from them in a settlement. Brodkorb, meanwhile, retaliated with a point by point list of the merits of his case and the falsehoods he claimed the GOP had engaged in regarding his termination.

Lesson here? Never fire a person trained in opposition research.