President Obama Needs to Cut Ties with This Alleged Grifter
There is nothing redeeming about Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson, and the president should cut him loose.
As I think we've mentioned several dozen times in this shebeen, the president's inexplicable sweet-tooth for the grifters, rounders, and mountebanks of the school "reform" movement is one of the most puzzling aspects of his years in office. One of the most egregious examples of this is the president's willingness to associate with Kevin Johnson, former NBA point guard, mayor of Sacramento, and husband of queen-bee grifter Michelle Rhee. On many levels, Johnson is a truly awful human being.
Thanks to Deadspin's invaluable Dave McKenna, the onetime bane of evil-dwarf owner Dan Snyder in Washington, we are spelunking pretty regularly into the dark, dank depths of the muck that composes Kevin Johnson's political soul. What we find there is best left to the folks in the HazMat suits to handle. McKenna's most recent expedition has brought back the usual bagful of pure, foul awfulness.
Is there sexual misconduct? Judge for yourself.
This revelation comes as Johnson is in the worst spot of his three-decade run in the public eye.ESPN canceled the debut of Down in the Valley, a documentary that deified Johnson for having finagled $255 million in public money to keep the local NBA franchise in his hometown but totally ignored his well-documented dark side. The seamiest portions of Johnson's back story involve the many allegations of sexual abuse and harassment that have come his way his way since the mid-1990s. Johnson has never been charged with a sex crime, but ESPN's shelving the movie comes amid growing suspicions that a key reason none of the abuse claims made against him derailed his rise to power is that he made legal settlements that forced alleged victims to hush up.
MORE FROM ESQUIRE
Is there political ratfcking? Is there financial malfeasance? I don't know. What do you think?
The biggest of the demands is that Williams must stop contesting Johnson's petition to dissolve the NCBM through the bankruptcy courts. That would mean Johnson's goal of doing away with the group would be complete. (Johnson started a competing organization, called the African American Mayors Association, the day after he filed a Chapter 7 petition for the NCBM that board members of the group now say was illegitimate. Ballard Spahr is now serving as legal counsel for Johnson's new group—pro bono, of course.) The strangest demand? "Mrs. Williams would retract all of her statements to Deadspin pursuant to the settlement agreement," reads Pittinsky's settlement offer. "She would not have to say her statements were false. All she would have to do is retract them and agree not to talk to Deadspin again." Since late last year, Williams has spoken with Deadspin about Johnson, accusing him of various professional and personal malfeasances related to the NCBM coup. Williams says she is personally broke as a result of Johnson freezing NCBM's bank accounts in 2013 and taking sponsors away from the group.
Is there the deliberate destruction of political opponents? Opinions vary.
Whether there was an actual concerted effort to bankrupt Williams is an open question; either way, the discovery phase of her civil case against Johnson has produced bizarre evidence. In onePresident Obama Needs to Cut Ties with This Grifter: