Added Gordon: “When you’re in a leadership position, sometimes people just try to take a shot at you.”

As to whether the association under Cain ever paid a monetary settlement to women who had leveled such accusations against him, Gordon referred the question to the restaurant trade group.

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Kilgore told POLITICO in a statement: “Please understand that our corporate policy is not to discuss personnel matters (other than to confirm employment and dates of employment) with outside sources, including media. Thus, I must respectfully decline to comment on your questions or any allegations you may be looking into that concern current or former employees of the association.”

After POLITICO published its reporting Sunday evening, the Cain campaign said in a statement that the “political trade press are now casting aspersions on his character and spreading rumors that never stood up to the facts,” but the campaign did not deny the details of the report.

“Fearing the message of Herman Cain, who is shaking up the political landscape in Washington, Inside the Beltway media have begun to launch unsubstantiated personal attacks on Cain,” the campaign said in a statement. “Sadly, we’ve seen this movie played out before — a prominent Conservative targeted by liberals simply because they disagree with his politics.”

The revelations come at a time when Cain is riding high in the polls, with a candidacy that relies heavily on his claims that his experience as a businessman and the former head of Godfather’s Pizza has prepared him to be president.

But the Republican presidential hopeful also has begun to face increasing scrutiny in the news media over his management style as he presides over an unorthodox campaign that has seen the departures of several aides and struggled to take advantage of Cain’s sudden vault to the head of the pack.

Cain, who has been married to his wife Gloria for 43 years, did tell at least one campaign staffer this year about the possibility that claims of sexual harassment could surface, according to the aide. Cain, this person said, described a case in which he fired an employee in 1990s and the woman alleged sexual misconduct or harassment. Cain told the campaign staffer he had won the case and that the woman had paid his legal fees. The aide had no further details.

Cain was head of the restaurant trade group after he left as CEO of Godfather’s Pizza. He has often referred to his experience running the pizza company but speaks less often about his tenure atop the association. The year before he took the helm, the association represented about 150,000 food service establishments, had roughly 115 employees and a government affairs budget of nearly $20 million. But it was not known as a lobbying powerhouse.

Cain tried to change that, hiring more lobbyists and taking a much more public role in advocating for the industry than his predecessor had. Boasting of the shift in his book, Cain noted that during his tenure, the restaurant association made its first appearance on Fortune magazine’s list of Washington’s 25 most influential interest groups (it rose as high as 15th).