In May 2016, Rep. Elizabeth Esty’s (D-CT) former chief of staff, Tony Baker, left a voicemail for a former aide to the congresswoman, threatening her with death if she didn’t respond. “You better fucking reply to me or I will fucking kill you,” he told the aide, a woman he had once dated.

Although Esty soon learned of the death threat and of claims that Baker had “punched, berated and sexually harassed” the aide during her 2014 tenure as a senior adviser in the congresswoman’s Washington office, he was allowed to remain on staff for three months, a Washington Post report revealed on Thursday night.

Esty claims that a flawed congressional reporting system allowed the staffer to remain in her office for as long as he did.

After an internal investigation stemming from the incident, Esty reportedly provided the chief of staff with a letter of reference and signed a non-disclosure agreement. Baker received $5,000 in severance out of House funds, though the congresswoman says she has since repaid the funds to the U.S. Treasury out of her own pocket.


Following initial reporting by the Connecticut Post, Esty released a statement apologizing for her handling of the situation. “I am sorry that I failed to protect [the former aide] and provide her with the safe and respectful work environment that every employee deserves,” she wrote. “I am sorry that I hurt her, her friends, family, and co-workers, and many of my present and former staffers.”

Esty vowed to “do better,” and proposed that survivors and allies have a conversation “about how to implement the changes necessary both in Congress and more broadly to prevent this from happening again.”

In a troubling twist, the congresswoman also told the Post that the Office of House Employment Counsel had allegedly pressured her to sign the non-disclosure agreement, which she said delayed her then-chief of staff’s exit, and noted that the system helps shield those who misbehave.

“Clearly that’s what it’s all set up to do — to protect the member of Congress whose bad behavior caused the problem,” Esty told the outlet. “It felt wrong to me. …When I’m reading the documents and these drafts, it kept going through my mind, ‘This is not right. This is not what happened.'”

The Office of House Employment Counsel told the Post that it does not respond to media questions.

The reporting system to which Esty was likely referring has been at the center of several high profile accusations stemming from the “Me Too” movement on Capitol Hill. As ThinkProgress previously reported, prior to last fall, the process members of Congress utilized to deal with any sexual assault or harassment allegations within their offices was long and arduous, capping the statute of limitations for complaints at just 180 days. If a staffer ended up reporting an incident within that time frame, it was generally handled through counseling or mediation, frequently ending in a confidential settlement from congressional coffers.


In February, the House voted to change some of its decades-old rules to revise the process somewhat, preventing members of Congress from having sexual relations with their staffers and offering the staffers legal resources if they chose to file any complaints. The new rules also prohibit members from using their budgets to pay any settlements.

Since the rise of the #MeToo movement, numerous members of Congress and staffers have been accused of sexual misconduct. Sen. Al Franken (D-MN), Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ) have all resigned their seats after accusations against them, while Reps. Blake Farenthold (R-TX), Ruben Kihuen (D-NV), and Patrick Meehan (R-PA), have all said they will not seek re-election after allegations of misconduct against them surfaced.

UPDATE, 10:35 am: In a letter to House Democrats on Friday, Esty addressed the controversy over her former chief of staff, writing, “How did I not know? How did I not see it? What I do know is that wasn’t an isolated incidence on Capitol Hill and that we can and must do better to ensure a safe environment for our employees. As Members of Congress, we are all responsible for ensuring that we provide a safe and supportive environment for our staff. I can’t rewrite the past – but I can help right the future”