The New York Times announced Monday it is suspending its chief White House correspondent, Glenn Thrush, citing reports of the journalist’s inappropriate behavior with women.

The announcement came the same day the website Vox published a long story in which several women in their 20s said that Thrush groped them, or came on to them with wet kisses — and that they felt disgusted or embarrassed afterward.

Thrush became so well-known for his sexual advances toward young female journalists in Washington, when he worked for Politico, that many women passed along warnings about him, to try to protect one another.

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“Multiple young women journalists I spoke to said that they’d heard serious warnings about Thrush from friends. The word among women just starting in Washington, they said, is to be careful if you meet him at an event with alcohol, or if he sends you a direct message on Twitter,” Vox reported.

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The author of the Vox piece, Laura McGann, related her own story about Thrush, saying when they worked at Politico together but in different positions — he as a reporter and she as an editor — he grabbed her thigh at a late-night work event after sending a younger female co-worker home in a shockingly rude way.

“Thrush tossed a $20 bill at her and told her to take a cab and leave us, ‘the grown-ups,’ alone,” McGann wrote. “He slid into my side of the booth, blocking me in. I was wearing a skirt, and he put his hand on my thigh. He started kissing me. I pulled myself together and got out of there, shoving him on my way out.”

The next day, McGann said, she saw Thrush at the office deep in conversation with male colleagues, and that she noticed in the days following that people in the office started speaking to her in a different way. She later confirmed what she’d suspected: Thrush had told his male colleagues that she had come on to him, and that he’d played the part of the responsible adult, making sure nothing happened.

When reached by McGann for the story, Thrush denied McGann’s account, saying, “The encounter described [in this story] was consensual, brief, and ended by me.”

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In a longer statement, which was emailed, Thrush blamed alcohol.

“Over the past several years, I have responded to a succession of personal and health crises by drinking heavily,” he wrote. “During that period, I have done things that I am ashamed of, actions that have brought great hurt to my family and friends. I have not taken a drink since June 15, 2017, have resumed counseling and will soon begin outpatient treatment for alcoholism. I am working hard to repair the damage I have done.”

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The New York Times, somewhat strangely, seemed to affirm that alcohol was the reason for Thrush’s maltreatment of women — announcing on Monday it was suspending Thrush so that he could attend counseling, and so that the paper could investigate the allegations.

“We intend to fully investigate and while we do, Glenn will be suspended,” The Times said in a statement. “We support his decision to enter a substance abuse program. In the meantime, we will not be commenting further.”

Thrush worked at Politico for eight years before he was hired by The New York Times after the election of President Donald Trump. He started working for The Times in January.

His hiring was extremely controversial in journalism circles, as he’d been exposed by WikiLeaks as having sent articles, or parts of articles, to the Clinton campaign for its review before publication. This is typically a fireable offense for a journalist, and would usually be career-ending, as it would mark the journalist as being compromised, and unable, therefore, to continue reporting with any pretense of objectivity.

Related: WikiLeaks: Politico Reporter Offered Clinton Camp Chance to Edit Story

In the first instance, Thrush sent an email to Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta with several passages from a story that he had written, asking Podesta to review it and let him know if there were any issues with it.

“Because I have become a hack I will send u the whole section that pertains to u [sic],” Thrush wrote to Podesta. “Please don’t share or tell anyone I did this … tell me if I f***ed up anything.”

In the second instance, he sent part of a story to Clinton campaign communications director Jennifer Palmieri, who forwarded it to several other people in the campaign, with the note: “He did me courtesy of sending what he is going to say about me. Seems fine.”

The emails show a very cozy relationship between the Clinton campaign and one of the top political journalists covering it, a relationship that would most certainly impair the writer’s ability to report fairly.

Thrush was recently contracted by Random House to write a book about the Trump campaign along with his New York Times colleague, Maggie Haberman, also formerly of Politico.