Holocaust denier Trump White House official Paul Ingrassia’s lawyer Ed Paltzik wasted very little time on Friday responding to Politico’s early morning story about his client’s really weak-ass attempt to eff a female colleague, raging at them in a letter reading “Politico’s hit piece about Mr Ingrassia is calculated to cause maximum harm to his promising career – and torpedo his nomination for Special Counsel. This vexatious political attack masquerading as ‘journalism’ is defamatory and will be addressed in forthcoming litigation. To be 100 percent crystal clear, so that there is zero room for doubt: Mr Ingrassia did not engage in any wrongdoing in connection with the matters reported.”
The “matters reported” were that Ingrassia had secretly rigged travel accommodations to force a subordinate female co-worker in a transparent attempt to initiate sex by forced proximity. By denying “wrongdoing” rather than the allegation well he’s kind of indirectly acknowledging that it happened but it’s totally cool for Ingrassia to have made a woman share a hotel room with him. The lawyer did admit that the sleeping arrangement part was true in comments on the initial piece.
Paltzik continues with “As Politico itself reported: ‘The woman, whom Politico is not naming, said in a statement that she never felt uncomfortable’ about Ingrassia’s behavior and said she had never made a complaint.’ This is one of the only accurate parts of Politico’s otherwise fantastical and fictional partisan fairy tale.” Bitchy, histrionic complaining aside, he did at least acknowledge that it was contradictory for him to credit one part of the story but not the other key details.