Relating to a lawsuit filed by the Labor Department alleging tech giant Oracle underpaid 6,000 female and minority employees, the lead attorney has filed a whistleblower complaint against Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia stating that Scalia improperly influenced the prosecution of the case for political reasons, Politico reports.
Attorneys for the Labor Department’s Regional Solicitor Janet Herold said she repeatedly raised concerns about the involvement of Scalia after he became Secretary of Labor in September 2019. She repeated the objections in July 2020, after which she was reassigned and taken off the case.
Herold’s attorney’s contend that Scalia sought to influence the case against Oracle because of the company’s ties to Trump and the Trump campaign. Oracle’s Chairman Larry Ellison hosted a fundraiser for the Trump campaign earlier this year, and the company’s CEO Safra Catz has donated large sums to the president’s effort, including more than $66,000 to the republican National Committee in each of the 2016 and 2018 election cycles and $33,000 to date for the current election. In addition, Oracle has sought many government contracts since its founding.
The discrimination suit is one of the largest of its kind filed by the Department of Labor against an American corporation.