Consider This from NPR - Looking The Other Way Pt 1: A powerful Democrat and a #MeToo scandal

Episode Date: August 24, 2024

Did Eric Garcetti, a powerful Democrat, lie under oath about a #MeToo scandal in his office? That's the question at the center of a new investigation from NPR.For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org.Email us at [e-mail] more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Good morning. We are now on the record. The time is 10.05 a.m. on February 8th, 2021. Just a few years ago, a group of lawyers got together on a video conference to question a witness. Would you please raise your hand? You do solemnly state under penalty of perjury that the testimony you shall give in this court shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. I do. This witness almost avoided testifying, but a judge said he had important information in the case and ordered him to sit for a deposition. At the time, he was one of the most powerful people in the city of Los Angeles. Sir, state your full name and spell it, please.

Eric, with a C, Michael, M-I-C-H-A-E-L, Garcetti. G-A-R-C-E-T-T-I. By that point, Eric Garcetti had been the mayor of Los Angeles for almost eight years. He had been a co-chair of Joe Biden's 2020 presidential campaign and a rising star in the Democratic Party. And he was not used to being questioned this way. Have you ever had your deposition taken before? No, this is my first. This case was about allegations of sexual harassment inside Los Angeles City Hall. Garcetti was not accused of harassing anyone himself, but he was accused of witnessing and enabling harassment and intimidation by one of his close friends and top political advisors over the course of years.

Garcetti had told reporters he knew nothing about any alleged harassment in his office. It all came as a shock, he said. But now, he was talking to the lawyers. You're under oath, and even though you're the mayor of Los Angeles, penalty of perjury does attach to your testimony today. You understand that? Of course. But whether Garcetti actually did tell the whole truth,

that is an important question. For one thing, lying under oath is known as perjury. It's a crime. But also, Eric Garcetti went from the mayor of the second biggest city in the country to a member of the Biden-Harris administration. He is now U.S. ambassador to India, a country with an extensive gender-based violence and harassment problem, according to the State Department. And in the process of getting Garcetti that job, the Biden-Harris administration staked its own credibility on Garcetti's testimony. At one point, the White House referred to the allegations against him as, quote, a partisan hit job. Consider this. Did Eric Garcetti and the White House tell the truth? I'm Scott Detrow.

It's Consider This from NPR. To answer the question of whether Eric Garcetti and the White House told the truth, NPR obtained deposition videos and thousands of pages of transcripts that have never been made public. We got access to internal emails, and we have spoken to insiders who watched all of this as it unfolded. It's a case that raises questions not just about what a top diplomat in the Biden administration knew and when, but also about what happens when political ambition and allegations of harassment collide in the Me Too era. NPR investigative correspondent Tom Dreisbach has the story, a two-part investigation. And a warning before we get started that this story does include some explicit language and descriptions of sexual

harassment. A decade ago, Eric Garcetti seemed to have built the perfect resume for a Southern California politician. He had a famous name. His dad is Gil Garcetti. You might remember him as the L.A. County D.A. during the O.J. Simpson murder trial. Eric Garcetti was a Democrat in a deep blue state. He went to an Ivy League college, became a Rhodes Scholar, served in the Navy Reserves, spoke fluent Spanish, and he spent more than a decade as an L.A. city councilman before getting elected mayor in 2013. So let me start by saying thank you. Thank you to the thousands of you who volunteered for this campaign. He was considered this huge rising star in the Democratic Party. My mandate was, how do you lift this star even higher? This is Naomi Seligman.

Garcetti hired her as his communications director at City Hall. You know, you're running a municipal office. So at the same time, you know, we're talking about broken sidewalks, working on those issues that make a city run. And then it was like, how do you get him in front of, you know, Pod Save America? And so that was always kind of the push-pull was, you know, that's fine, but is he on CNN today? The morning after Donald Trump won the 2016 election, Garcetti sent an email to his staff and told them to immediately call up reporters to talk him up as a rising star.

He said they needed to push the narrative that, quote, Garcetti stands as a mayor who is getting things done, popular in his city and beyond. In case you're wondering, he was writing about himself in the third person. Do you want to be president of the United States? And in 2017 and 2018, he was openly talking about running for president against Donald Trump, like on Jimmy Kimmel's late night show. You know, certain days, I think everybody who's a patriot should be thinking about running, even if they have a snowball's chance. Yeah, but do you want to be president? I don't know. And then other days, I think I don't want to be away from my daughter and my wife in L.A.

Yeah, I think they have an extra room in the house. I heard they do. We can hook them up. But I don't know. I'm thinking hard about it. I think around this time in 2018, the Me Too movement against sexual harassment and abuse really started gaining traction. It shook up politics and Garcetti publicly took on the issue. Republicans, of course, stood by Donald Trump, even after the Access Hollywood tape where he talked about grabbing women's genitals and after a series of accusations of sexual assault, which Trump denied. Democrats said they would be different. I will be resigning as a member of the United States Senate.

Senator Al Franken resigned under pressure after a photo emerged of him pretending to grope a woman back when he was a comedian. The attorney general of New York, Eric Schneiderman, resigned too over allegations of sexual abuse. An absolutely stunning fall from grace. He was New York State's highest-ranking law enforcement official, a liberal Democrat who prided himself on... Harvey Weinstein was a big contributor to Democratic politicians' campaigns, including Garcetti's. And when Weinstein was accused of assault and rape, Garcetti and other Democrats condemned him, sent those checks to charity.

Garcetti, along with other Democrats, publicly took on the fight against sexual harassment. If you see injustice, fix it. Don't be a bystander. Be a participant. Stop dismissing locker room talk. It ain't locker room talk. That's Garcetti at the 2018 Women's March

in Los Angeles. He also announced a new tool for city employees to report harassment. Let me be clear, in the city of Los Angeles, sexual harassment has no place in our workplace. This issue and others got Garcetti some attention. But after months and months of giving interviews and talking about running, Garcetti eventually did not see a path to winning a tough primary against more famous Democrats. He went on to endorse one of those Democrats, Joe Biden. Because he is the right leader at the right moment in this city and in this nation and in this world to lead our country. At that point in the campaign, Biden was struggling,

and the Biden team named Garcetti a co-chair of the presidential campaign. But then Biden got a late surge, went on to win the Democratic primary. And suddenly, Garcetti was on the rise again, too. He wouldn't become president like he imagined, but a Biden win would mean Garcetti had a shot at moving from local to national politics, maybe even get a big job in the administration. Then came July 2020. In a lawsuit filed Monday and obtained by KTLA, it alleges a longtime consultant for Mayor Garcetti made crude sexual comments and unwanted physical advances over several years towards an LAPD officer who worked

on the mayor's security detail. The mayor's security detail is kind of like the secret service for the mayor, his bodyguards. And in this lawsuit, this officer claimed that one of Eric Garcetti's top advisors and close friends had repeatedly sexually harassed him over the course of years. This advisor's name is Rick Jacobs. And here's where I need to stop and tell you about Rick Jacobs, his power, his influence, and his role in Garcetti's political operation. Rick Jacobs grew up in Tennessee and went on to college at Georgetown. I always wanted to work for the CEO of a big company.

I really wanted to work for a big oil company and go off to Africa. This is from an interview Jacobs gave to UCLA in 2009, looking back on his career. I wanted to work for the CEO of a big company. I really wanted to work for a big oil company and go off to Africa. This is from an interview Jacobs gave to UCLA in 2009, looking back on his career. And in that interview, Jacobs said he got his wish. He ended up working for a billionaire businessman named Armand Hammer. Hammer ran the company Occidental Petroleum, was also deeply involved in politics. So he could be literally ruthless in business. But he was a really liberal guy in a lot of ways. Jacobs said this powerful, ruthless, and liberal businessman was also a

mentor. Later, Jacobs built another company that invested in Russia. So Jacobs had built all these connections to powerful people in business and politics. And in the early 2000s, he got involved in a major political race, Howard Dean's 2004 presidential campaign. I am running for the presidency of the United States of America. Jacobs ran the campaign's California operation. I have the honor to just mention briefly the electeds, City Council Member Eric Garcetti.

Jacobs introduced Howard Dean to Eric Garcetti, who was a city councilman at the time. And Garcetti. Jacobs introduced Howard Dean to Eric Garcetti, who was a city councilman at the time. And Garcetti endorsed Dean. Dean lost that campaign, but Garcetti and Jacobs stayed friends. And Jacobs got more and more involved in LA and California politics, starting his own political advocacy group. I'm Rick Jacobs. I'm the chair and founder of the Courage Campaign. Courage Campaign was especially active in supporting same-sex marriage. Jacobs is gay. And when Garcetti ran for L.A. mayor in 2013,

Jacobs raised more than $2 million for a group that supported Garcetti's campaign and released attack ads going after Garcetti's opponent. She wasted our time and money. L.A. can't afford a mayor like that. After Garcetti won that election, he then hired Jacobs at L.A. City Hall as deputy chief of staff, later gave him a special title, executive vice mayor. Naomi Seligman told me that Jacobs was a driving force for Garcetti's political ambitions. I mean, Rick Jacobs brought Eric Garcetti to the ball. Rick

Jacobs introduced him to the biggest donors he has. Rick Jacobs was his ticket. And thank you to this kick-beep team that ran this campaign. When Garcetti won re-election as mayor in 2017, he made sure to thank Rick Jacobs. The two of them created a political action committee. Jacobs helped raise money from Hollywood moguls like Jeffrey Katzenberg and Michael Eisner, as well as tech billionaires like Elon Musk and David Sachs. Jacobs also developed connections to members of Joe Biden's inner circle, even attended Pete Buttigieg's wedding. Jacobs and Garcetti started a nonprofit together that used private money for city projects and raised millions of dollars from the government of Qatar, which is known for repression and

censorship. And they created another group called Accelerator for America that helped boost Garcetti's political platform on infrastructure. We thank Rick Jacobs publicly as well who heads up the Acceleration America. All that meant by 2020, Jacobs and Garcetti had been close friends for almost two decades and had worked together for a lot of that time

at City Hall, exploring a run for president, and at fundraisers and events around the country and even abroad. Then, suddenly, in the summer of 2020, an allegation had landed at the center of his political world in the form of a lawsuit that would change everything for both Garcetti and Jacobs. One of Garcetti's LAPD bodyguards claimed that Rick Jacobs had repeatedly sexually harassed

him and that Garcetti knew and did nothing to stop it. The name of this officer is Matthew Garza. Here begins the remote deposition of Matthew Garza, Volume 1, in the matter of Matthew Garza versus the city of Los Angeles. We got a copy of Matthew Garza's testimony in the case. This audio has never been heard publicly before, and the officer has never given a major interview about this. So this is the first time you can hear from him in his own words. And let me just say here that Jacobs has denied

all wrongdoing. Matthew Garza first joined the LAPD in 1997. And after about 15 years with the police, he heard about an opening with the mayor's protective detail. I had two young children at the time. And my youngest, my daughter, who had just been born, was born with a disability, which was going to require an evasive surgery and years of therapy. Garza said that his regular assignment with the department involved tough, unpredictable hours that could change from one day to the next. But the mayor's protective detail would be different. The schedule would be more conducive to me being able to be there for my wife and my family during this time of need for my daughter's disability. So he applied and got the job protecting Eric Garcetti. And that is how Matthew Garza met Rick Jacobs.

Jacobs was about 20 years older. You can see in photos that he's physically bigger than Garza, too. Garza testified that Jacobs would act inappropriately at work in a couple ways. First, Garza said, were the hugs, which he described as big, tight bear hugs. He would pull me in with his hand, embrace me in a big, strong, tight hug, and whisper into my ear that I was handsome, I was good looking, I have beautiful blue eyes. That was a common occurrence almost on a daily basis. He said it bothered him. If it was just a handshake, like a normal handshake,

I probably wouldn't have a problem with that, but it was never just a handshake. Garza testified that sometimes he and Garcetti and Jacobs would travel out of town. And he said on one trip, after Garcetti and Jacobs held an event with the tech billionaire David Sachs, they were at this hotel bar. So Rick was standing over at one of the bar stools. He was drinking an alcoholic drink from a glass with a straw. And he's directly in front of me. He makes eye contact with me.

And he starts rubbing his tongue up and down the straw in a sexual manner while looking at me and then laughing. He did that several times while laughing. Garza also claimed that there were comments about Jacob's sex life or comments about other people's looks. Garza testified that this would often happen in the car. Garza would be driving, Garcetti would be in the front passenger seat, and Jacobs would be sitting behind them, like this one time Garza testified about. We were in the car, we were driving to some type of fundraising event, and Rick Jacobs made a comment in reference to taking money from donors.

Are you ready to fuck tonight without KY? And the mayor laughed at that comment. Garza testified that this was not an isolated incident and that Garcetti either did nothing or laughed along. Being that he is the mayor of Los Angeles and he's responsible for coming up with these sexual harassment policies, by him laughing at some of these comments

that were made by Ray Jacobs, I personally take that as a form of sexual harassment. He testified that it was almost like Garcetti was enticing Jacobs to continue with that behavior. Matthew Garza stayed with the mayor's protective detail throughout all this time. And from 2013 to 2020, he never filed a complaint of any kind about Rick Jacobs or Eric Garcetti. Garza said the reason was that he was worried that if he complained, he'd lose a good job that helped him be there for his family.

Or worse, he said he thought if he spoke up about one of the mayor's close friends and top advisors, Garcetti, or maybe Jacobs, might retaliate. Rick Jacobs is an extremely powerful man in the mayor's office. He influences every decision, almost every decision the mayor makes. I would have been retaliated against if I had spoken out against Rick Jacobs. Regardless of the reason, for all those years, Garza stayed quiet. Then came 2020.

Garza had gone on leave because of back issues. The world shut down with COVID, and that meant a lot of time at home, a lot of time thinking about his experience with Rick Jacobs, and back to his childhood. As a kid, Garza went to Catholic school. He testified that back when he was in elementary school, a priest sexually abused him over the course of about two years. He said he was too scared and ashamed to tell his parents what was happening. Garza was not saying that these two different experiences, at school and in the Garcetti administration, were somehow the same. But he said that hearing sexual jokes and comments and having to deal with unwanted touching just brought back bad memories. It's something that I, um, internalized for a very, very long time. And when I would hear these comments, it would kind of take me back to that place. It just, it made me, gave me

some anxiety, gave me like a, I had like a pit in my stomach. It just, um, it, gave me some anxiety, gave me, I had a pit in my stomach. It just, it was not a good feeling. At the same time, there was also a lot of frustration inside the LAPD about Garcetti. This was the summer that George Floyd was murdered by police in Minneapolis. And in response to the massive protest movement, Garcetti said L.A. would shift money away from the police. It starts someplace and we say we are going to be who we want to be, or we're going to continue being the killers that we are. Garcetti later clarified those comments that he never meant to imply that the LAPD were killers, but society in general.

The comments still made the LAPD union and a lot of L.A. cops upset, Garza included. And in that context, Garza decided to move forward with a lawsuit. Then came the response. Rick Jacobs denied everything. He gave a statement to the media that the lawsuit was, quote, a work of pure fiction. Out of left field, writing Officer Garza and I worked together for many years without incident. I will vigorously defend myself, my character and my reputation. The city launched an official investigation.

Garcetti issued a statement that he did not witness, let alone endorse, any alleged harassment by Rick Jacobs, as Garza had claimed. But that still left Eric Garcetti with an important decision. At this point, Rick Jacobs was no longer a city employee, but he was still a top political advisor with Garcetti. They had multiple non-profits they worked at together. And so after these allegations came out, would they keep working together? This was not a question Garcetti could avoid for very long. Like a lot of politicians in the summer of 2020, he was giving a lot of press conferences with updates about the COVID pandemic. First question, please. And so about 10 days after the lawsuit went public, he was asked,

will you still work with Rick Jacobs while the lawsuit and investigation are ongoing? And Garcetti said yes. As I said from the beginning of this, this is something unequivocally that I did not witness. Secondarily, that it deserves to have the support and the investigation. But fundamentally, this is something that should take a process forward, but shouldn't keep somebody who has been a committed public servant from being able to continue to serve our community and our world. Thank you. Next question, please. And so publicly, that's where the case stood.

A lone LAPD officer making this accusation of routine sexual harassment by a top advisor to the mayor, which the mayor allegedly witnessed. Both the advisor and the mayor denied it, said they would keep working together. The news largely moved on, but Garza claimed he was not alone. I'm not the only person that this happened to in regards to Rick Jacobs and during his time with the city. There's many others. Like I said, Eric Garcetti had been friends with Rick Jacobs for a long time. By the time of the lawsuit by the LAPD officer, they had known each other for about 17 years.

Garcetti had hired Jacobs at City Hall, worked with him as a political advisor, fundraiser, consultant. And so to answer the question of what Eric Garcetti knew, it's helpful to ask, what was Rick Jacobs' reputation for all those years? And here's where I need to introduce you to a guy named Yashar Ali. Back in 2005, Ali was a fundraiser for Democratic politics in California.

So was Jacobs. They're both gay. They traveled in the same circles. Until one night... I was invited to Rick's house one night for a party for Arianna Huffington. Huffington, of course, is the founder of the Huffington Post. Ali says she's the kind of big name in media and politics that was connected to Rick Jacobs. And that's when I first met Rick. Had you heard anything about Rick before then? What was his reputation?

His reputation was as a power broker, as someone who was a very prolific fundraiser. He was engaged. He was lively. He was very funny. Ali describes Jacobs as a big, intense personality, which often helped with fundraising. The thing that people need to understand about Rick is when he enters a room, he sort of commands attention. He's very loud. He's very boisterous. And Ali said that intensity translated to physical touch, too. He describes Rick's hugs as so strong they would break your teeth. At one point, their relationship changed. Ali says he went to a fundraiser.

It's a big party, lots of people around. And he saw Rick Jacobs. I remember him walking towards me with his two hands out and grabbing my face and kissing me forcibly on the lips two times. Two times in a row, like in the same moment? Or are you talking about different? In the same moment. How did you react? How did you? I was frozen. It made me very, very uncomfortable. Ali says he did not consent, but he also did not tell Jacobs to stop and did not turn away. He says he was almost in a state of shock.

And once he did that and I didn't object to it, he continued. But not objecting to something is not consent. It's just not objecting. And would he say anything when this would happen? He would always say, God, your lips are so soft. How did you feel about that? It was always weird. Looking back on it, I always remember sort of being glad that it was like, it was something that would be over very quickly. How many times did it happen after? I would say at least a dozen times. It was always in front of people. This was always out in the open. In fact, it was so out in the open that no one disputes that Jacobs kissed Ali. Ali said he would see Garcetti at these parties and

fundraisers, and he believes Garcetti saw Rick Jacobs kiss him. Garcetti told NPR that he does not know Ali and would not recognize him if he saw him. Ali says it's important to note that Garcetti could not have known that these kisses were not consensual, because back then, Ali did not speak up. I spoke to several people who knew Jacobs in that time, before he joined L.A. City Hall, and their stories were consistent with Yashar Ali's. They did not want to use their names because they said they're scared that he'll use his wealth and powerful connections to retaliate. Three people told me that at parties and also at meetings on city business, Jacobs forcibly kissed and also groped people without their consent.

Another friend of Jacobs later testified that Jacobs would get, quote, aggressive and handsy when drinking. Their stories match reporting from the LA Times and New York Magazine. I also talked to six former employees of the Courage campaign, the liberal group Rick Jacobs founded and led, to learn more about how he was as a boss. The organization was virtual, so they'd sometimes host events and fundraisers and board meetings at Jacob's house. He would have out-of-town employees stay overnight at his house, too. That all blurred the lines between professional and personal, especially when alcohol was involved, which employees said was a lot. Employees said Jacobs sometimes made racist comments and often talked graphically about his own sex life. They told me that putting up with his intentionally provocative behavior was basically required to keep your job.

Rick Jacobs. Some of that seemed to bleed over into Courage Campaign's activism. Jacobs posted videos where he would confront elected officials, like when he brought a heavy box of that seemed to bleed over into Courage Campaign's activism. Jacobs posted videos where he would confront elected officials, like when he brought a heavy box of petitions to the press secretary for the California governor and ended up commenting on the press secretary's body. Lift with your knees. You have been working out. He's a pretty hefty guy, and he picked him up, took him inside. Former employees also told me that Jacobs physically touched them with

hugs and kisses in ways that they never experienced from any other boss in any other workplace. One man, who's gay, told me that Jacobs forcibly kissed him on the lips, aggressively hugged him, and made explicit comments about sex and genitalia. He said the whole experience left him feeling objectified, expendable, and scared. But I also heard another theme from several of these men about why they didn't speak up at the time and why it seemed like other people didn't think anything was wrong. They said there's a stereotype about gay men, that gay men invite this kind of sexualized behavior. It's something Yashar Ali told me too. There's a hyposexualization of gay men in Western cultures. It's a very damaging trope that is used to diminish allegations of sexual misconduct by gay men against other men. That this is what gay men do. But Ali and these other men who spoke to me said, no, the things they allege Rick Jacobs

did, they did not welcome. They did not consent. Ali and Jacobs drifted apart over the years, saw each other a lot less. So in July 2020, this lawsuit by the LAPD officer Matthew Garza gets filed. And I asked Ali what he felt reading it. It just sort of, it made sense. It made sense. And I remember getting angry from what I read in the lawsuit

and started to really think about my own experiences. And that's when he decided to say something, too. By this point, Ali had changed careers. He was now doing freelance reporting. If you use Twitter around this time, there's a good chance you saw his tweets, which often go viral. So he thought about saying something publicly. It probably would have gotten him a lot of attention. But instead,

he decided to write Rick Jacobs himself, privately. I texted Rick on his cell phone and said, Rick, I saw your statement denying the allegations by the LAPD officer, which is your right, of course, but you used to forcibly kiss me on the lips in front of other people all the time. I hated it. And you would often do it twice and then turn to people and remark how soft my lips were. It was not something I enjoyed at all. Did it make me feel unsafe? No. Do I know the circumstances around the LAPD allegations? I don't. But did they feel familiar? Yes.

I forgave you for what you used to do. Rick then responded to me almost immediately and said, We've confirmed all these text messages from the court records. Nothing at all is true. Nothing. It's fabricated. We've confirmed all these text messages from the court records. Ali said it felt almost liberating to finally speak up. But when Jacobs flatly denied doing anything wrong, Ali said he decided to do something else. I knew at that point that I had to say something to City Hall. He wrote to another one of Garcetti's top advisors at City Hall, basically to give him a heads up. And said, I saw the lawsuit and Rick used to do this to me. And I may say something about it publicly. He then called me.

The conversation was off the record. He did not say anything that was a bombshell, to be clear. But I did get the impression that First, from the LAPD officer, then from Ali himself, privately. He expected some kind of reaction. After all, Garcetti had made fighting sexual harassment part of his political brand. Eric Garcetti had built himself up as a Me Too hero with all sorts of commissions and declarations with respect to fighting sexual misconduct and sexual violence. And Ali had covered other harassment-related cases. He broke a story about Harvey Weinstein.

He said by 2020, there was almost a standard playbook for how to respond to these types of allegations. Government offices, corporations and organizations had developed this pattern of, all right, you've been accused of something, not a random tweet, but there's been a serious allegation. We're going to suspend you pending an investigation and we'll look into the allegations and then either you'll be kept on or you'll be terminated. None of that was happening. In the summer of 2020, in response to the allegations against his own advisor, Garcetti did allow for an investigation. But remember, Garcetti defended Jacobs, kept him on his team. But fundamentally, this is something that should take a process forward,

but shouldn't keep somebody who has been a committed public servant from being able to continue to serve our community and our world. Ali said he was shocked by that statement. At that point, he had already contacted City Hall and said that Jacobs had forcibly kissed him too. He waited a few more months, still didn't see any movement. And then in late October, he decided to publish his story. More shocking allegations against a key player in California politics and a one-time top advisor to Mayor Eric Garcetti. Rick Jacobs, who was also a former deputy chief of staff to the L.A. mayor, is again being accused of sexual harassment. This time by journalist and former political fixer Yashar Ali, who says Jacobs harassed him. The day after Ali published, Rick Jacobs stepped down. Jacobs said in a statement,

I don't want this to be a distraction. Therefore, I will take a leave from my nonprofit work and my volunteer political work with the mayor. And the city said publicly that it hired an outside law firm to investigate the allegations. Garcetti was still giving regular press conferences, and now there were new questions for him. First, why was Jacobs leaving his positions now and not when the first allegations went public? And was it Rick Jacobs' decision or Eric

Garcetti's? Garcetti is usually very comfortable and prepared taking questions from the press. But answering this question, he did not seem to have that normal confidence. With Rick, it was a mutual decision, but I did ask him to right now have us be separated from that. I think that has to happen. It can be a friend or somebody you don't know. And in these situations, the highest standard is to make sure, and it was because of new information. That is the reason why. And then another reporter followed up on the crux of the allegation. Earlier on Rick Jacobs, the allegations are that you witnessed some of this inappropriate sexual misconduct and that you did nothing to stop it. I'm just wondering if you can respond to that allegation. Sure. Categorically, no. Absolutely and categorically no.

Yashar Ali then tweeted, it should not have taken my writing a story for Eric Garcetti to take this step. Why wasn't a lawsuit filed in July enough to prompt the mayor to take action? So by the end of 2020, Eric Garcetti had officially cut ties with Rick Jacobs. The city of Los Angeles had hired an attorney to conduct essentially an HR investigation. And Yashar Ali and Matthew Garza were the only two people who alleged publicly and on the record that they had experienced harassment. And then... Joe Biden has won the American presidency. He is president-elect Joseph Robinette Biden.

The 46th president of the United States. Joe Biden winning the 2020 election meant Eric Garcetti still had that shot at a national political job. He went from co-chair of the Biden campaign to co-chair of the Biden inauguration. People familiar with the Biden team's thinking told me there was talk of making him secretary of transportation. But at the same time, Matthew Garza's lawsuit was moving forward. And it was headed to discovery. And there was a lot of information that people had inside City Hall.

My phone was like, everyone was texting. Rick would make inappropriate comments of a variety of natures. Off-color jokes, off-color remarks. I had never done anything that constituted sexual harassment and nobody had ever raised any questions. On the next episode,

we hear from Rick Jacobs and Eric Garcetti, on the record and under oath. Before we go, one last note on the Courage campaign, the group Rick Jacobs founded and led. The group has since rebranded as Courage California. At the time of the Garza lawsuit, Rick Jacobs was the group's emeritus chair of the board. But a year after the lawsuit, he was no longer listed on their website.

The group's current executive director, Irene Gao, declined to comment to me on any allegations against Rick Jacobs due to employee privacy, she said. She said the organization takes all allegations of discrimination and harassment seriously. However, she also told me not to send her any details of the inappropriate workplace behavior that former employees alleged in interviews with NPR. She said, quote, We at NPR, meanwhile, are still reporting. If you have any information you'd like to share about this story, you can send me an email at tdreisbach at npr.org,

or you can call me at 202-505-4802. I welcome your tips. This episode was reported by Tom Dreisbach. It was produced by Monika Evstatiyeva with help from Catherine Fink. It was edited by Barry Hardyman and Bob Little with help from Christian F. Calamore, Courtney Dorning, and Ashley Brown. Micah Ratner provided legal support. Music courtesy of Blue Dot Sessions and Universal Production Music. Special thanks to Claudia Piscuta, Libby Denkman, and Alyssa Walker.

Our executive producer is Sammy Yenigan. It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Scott Detrow.