First Gentleman wannabe Doug Emhoff, Democratic presidential candidate and Vice President Kamala Harris’ husband, might have a tough time with the title.
If the reports about him are true, he isn’t much of a gentleman.
Last week, allegations of domestic abuse surfaced. Now, staffers who worked at his law firm say he was an officious cad. Or, as they put it, an “a**hole” and “misogynist.”
Lawsuits: Emhoff Hired for Looks
The latest on Emhoff — accused of slapping a girlfriend across the face because he thought she was flirting with a parking valet — is another blow to the Harris campaign.
Colleagues who worked with him at his former law firm, Venable, claim “he yelled expletives, held a men-only cocktail hour in the office, revoked work perks from women who didn’t flirt with him, and took only young, attractive associates in a limousine to a ball,” the Daily Mail reported:
A 2019 lawsuit also claimed sex discrimination by other partners in the LA office Emhoff ran, and that while engaged to Harris, he hired an ‘unqualified’ part-time model as a legal secretary “because she was young, attractive and friendly with the powerful men in the office.”
Emhoff was managing director at the law firm’s branch in Los Angeles. The former colleagues describe a man who would be fired from any company that honored its employee manual and cared about the employees.
The colleagues requested anonymity, the website reported, because they fear retaliation by the powerful lawyer.
“One senior former staffer claimed Emhoff ‘bragged’ about yelling ‘get the f*** out of my office’ to a female partner at the firm, later telling his top male colleagues that he had ‘put her in her place,’” the Daily Mail revealed:
“She had to ask him something,” the ex-staffer said. “His office door was closed. She said to his secretary, ‘is he on the phone?’ She said no. She tapped on the door, he didn’t answer, so she slightly opened the door and stuck her head in.
“He said ‘get the f*** out of my office.’”
“What’s worse was he bragged about it to the management at Venable and they were aghast. He’s an a**hole. He told them how he ‘put her in her place.’ A misogynist, that’s who does that.”
A woman who worked at the firm told the website he was “very flirty.” And woe to the woman who didn’t reciprocate. Hell hath no fury like a Big Lawyer scorned. They landed on his “sh*tlist,” meaning “you wouldn’t get to work on the cases you wanted to work on.”
When Emhoff held his men-only cocktail parties on Friday nights, someone ratted him out to the powers that be, and the boozy locker-room soirees ended.
Emhoff also ripped off underlings by forcing them to fork over part of the bonuses they received for bringing in new clients. The practice “happens in law firms all the time,” the woman said.
Another woman equally put off by Emhoff’s inappropriate behavior said that “he favored ‘young, pretty girls.’”
“If there was an event, like the Justice Ball, he would favor certain people,” she said:
“Usually it was young, pretty girls. And he would prefer for them to ride with him. He would get a limo,” she said.
“I just don’t think his behavior was appropriate for the position he was in.”
One top former Venable staffer told the website that “plenty of people“ knew about Emhoff’s oafish behavior.
In 2019, the website reported, a former legal secretary sued the firm and two partners for sex discrimination.
Marjan Rabb “claimed Venable senior attorneys yelled at her, humiliated and demeaned her,” the Daily Mail reported.
Her lawsuit said Emhoff was notorious for hiring an “unqualified” but babelicious secretary. She was “hired because she was young, attractive and friendly with the powerful men in the office,” the lawsuit alleged.
Despite all that, other staffers gave Emhoff positive reviews. A senior staffer said he was “supportive,” the website reported, with “a genuine interest in the firm and the younger folks in the firm.”
Another partner, a man, called “respected and liked.”
Slapped His Girlfriend
The latest on Emhoff, who married Harris in 2014, comes after the Daily Mail detonated a second bomb last week.
The website revealed that Emhoff clobbered a girlfriend. He hit her so hard that she spun around. Understandably, she dumped him.
Another accusation: He not only got his kids’ nanny pregnant but also caused her to miscarry the child … while married to his first wife. Adulterer Emhoff, who confessed the affair after the Daily Mail revealed it, paid her $80,000, the website revealed.
Amusingly, Emhoff has earned a reputation as a new kind of man, a man “unburdened by what has been,” as his wife would say. “What has been” would be non-existent “toxic masculinity.”
Former Biden torpedo Jen Psaki titled her recent, way-too-friendly MSNBC interview “The Gentleman,” and told him that he had “reshaped the perception of masculinity.”
Of course, that was before the Daily Mail revealed that Emhoff clocked his ex-girlfriend.
“You’ve got this trope out there that you’ve got to be tough and angry and lash out to be strong,” Emhoff told giddy fan boy Jonathan Capehart of the The Washington Post in March 2023:
It’s just the opposite. Strength is how you show your love for people. Strength is how you are for people and how you have their back. And how you stick up for other people and [push back] against bullies.
Emhoff, Capehart wrote on X, “is the antidote to toxic masculinity.”
Not if you’re the ex-girlfriend.
