Neera Tanden Has Exercised Terrible Judgment, Assaulted A Reporter, Spread Conspiracy Theories, Outted Victims Of Sexual Assault, And Shown She Is Unqualified To Be OMB Director.
IN 2008, NEERA TANDEN ASSAULTED A JOURNALIST FOR ASKING A QUESTION SHE DIDN’T LIKE
- In 2008, when Tanden was a top advisor for Hillary Clinton, she reportedly punched then-reporter Faiz Shakir of ThinkProgress.
- Tanden, angered at a tough question directed at Clinton during a supposedly “easy” interview, punched Shakir and said “who the f*** do you think you are?”
- ThinkProgress was a website of Tanden’s Center For American Progress, meaning she not only struck a reporter, but a subordinate as well.
- Tanden’s defense for assaulting a journalist was “I didn’t slug him, I pushed him.”
- Tanden also tried to get liberal pundits to “shame” reporters to get more positive coverage of Clinton in 2015.
TANDEN HAS LED HOSTILE AND TOXIC WORK ENVIRONMENTS
- In 2018, Tanden publicly outed a sexual harassment victim during a staff meeting at the Center For American Progress.
- BuzzFeed reported that Tanden named the anonymous victim in an all-staff meeting.
- According to a CAP employee, “There is literally one thing you cannot do in this meeting and that is out the victim and Neera did it multiple times.”
- Another CAP employee said Tanden “outed the victim, and the subtext of every question was a lack of confidence in her leadership and ability to create trust within the organization.”
- Tanden outed the staffer after Buzzfeed reported on a “chaotic internal culture” at CAP, where there were multiple “incidents of sexual harassment” against staff that the organization’s management failed to address.
- Former CAP employees said that Tanden is a “very bad organizational leader” who lacks “leadership and moral courage.”
TANDEN’S BIG MONEY TIES RAISE SERIOUS QUESTIONS ABOUT HER INDEPENDENCE
- While Tanden was in charge of CAP, from 2014 to 2019, the organization received at least $33 million in donations from the financial services industry and from other wealthy investment firms.
- In addition to the $33 million from the finance industry, from 2014 to 2019, CAP received between $4.9 and $13 million from Big Tech companies and foundations.
- CAP’s “fiercest” criticism came over its acceptance of between $1.5 and $3 million from the United Arab Emirates.
- After Journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s killing, CAP put out a statement but “stop[ed] short of demanding specific consequences to punish the kingdom.”
- In January 2019, CAP fired two staffers that were “suspected of being involved in leaking an email exchange that staffers thought reflected improper influence by the United Arab Emirates within the think tank.”
TANDEN SPENT YEARS PUSHING DEBUNKED CONSPIRACY THEORIES AND MISINFORMATION ABOUT THE 2016 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION
- Days after the 2016 election, Tanden began strongly asserting that Russian hackers changed the vote totals, an unfounded conspiracy theory.
- Tanden wildly claimed that President Trump was being blackmailed by Russia – a baseless accusation – and repeatedly pushed the debunked Steele Dossier.
- Tanden also claimed – without evidence – that Justice Anthony Kennedy’s son made a billion dollars in loans to Trump and that was the motivation for his retirement from the Supreme Court.
- This conspiracy theory was so wildly false that even liberal outlet Slate called it a “sad delusion.”
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