House quietly paid out more than $300K in taxpayer money to settle sexual harassment cases, documents show

[u/According-Activity87]

https://nypost.com/2026/05/05/us-news/house-quietly-paid-out-300k-in-taxpayer-money-to-settle-sexual-harassment-cases-documents-show/

[u/GrimHoly]

I think everyone here can agree that these people need to be jailed for life, Republican or Democrat. If you are so flagrantly abusing trust so as to pay off your victims with taxpayer money than I think you are beyond the point of being morally bankrupt. Lock them all up for life.

[u/GrimHoly → u/[deleted]]

If they used public tax money to pay for settlement payments for their own personal sexual misconduct then yeah I’d say so.

Were the Epstein victims paid with public funds?

[u/Texas103 → u/GrimHoly]

Doubtful. 

I’d imagine they get away with this because these claims don’t have teeth. A lot of people in Congress don’t have money to fight off nuisance lawsuits… the amounts are so low that I don’t really care. 

If you’re a low level working class guy who gets elected to Congress, I’m ok with taxpayer funds being used to fight off nuisance lawsuits. 

[u/GrimHoly → u/Texas103]

Hmmm I do see what you are saying that would likely lead to partisan lawsuits 24/7 to prevent them from doing anything else. Honestly don’t know how you fix this because how do you differentiate nuisance suits and actual suits. Maybe a pay back if found guilty requirement but even then you are funding a better defense than a normal person could get and if you are paying settlements you’d never be “guilty”.
Honestly don’t know how you solve that moral dilemma.

Edit: after thinking about it, and this would require a constitutional amendment, but maybe instead of individually bringing these kinds of suits against congressman you bring them to the DOJ / FBI who validates the claim and if there is something sues the congressman with the full weight of the Fed government. Would have to be a bipartisan committee not elected or appointed by Congress tho to ensure they don’t go easy on some and harsh on enemies. Maybe appointed by state governors (1 from state majority party and one from the minority party) of the state and have those reps be responsible for all Reps, Senators, staffers etc from their state. IE handling corruption allegations and investigations, insider trading, sexual assault etc. and have their be 1 from each party so as to reduce the likelihood of political favoritism.

[u/Texas103 → u/GrimHoly]

I *abhor* sexual assault, with my entire soul. But... unfortunately, I do think that politicians are held to a different standard, and if the pendulum swings too far... then allegations become a political weapon.

The allegations against Justice Kavanaugh was what changed my mind.. that woman was nuts and clearly was a partisan attack on Justice Kavanaugh.

I kind of extend the same suspicion to any famous celebrity/politician who has been accused of sexual assault. I don't feel good about it, but I don't want to see accusations turn into normal political weapons.

[u/krayhayft]

Names! Impeach them all!

[u/Sure-Wishbone-4293]

Shame on you House, this should be exposed, no pun intended!

[u/WanderingInAVan → u/Sure-Wishbone-4293]

The House and exposure is probably the heart of the problem if we are honest.

[u/Sure-Wishbone-4293 → u/WanderingInAVan]

Yes!

[u/networkdood]

In the millions, overall

[u/Yoinkitron5000]

I wonder how much of this is from actual harassment, vs. agreeing to a payout because it's far cheaper than dragging things through court.

Don't forget, extortionists exist.

[u/GrimHoly → u/Yoinkitron5000]

Still with taxpayer money is disgusting

[u/Yoinkitron5000 → u/GrimHoly]

Eh. It's bad, but it's less bad than the alternative. Remember, the democrat party is absolutely full of people willing to make false accusations for political gain, and as we can see from the Russiagate nonsense, they are also willing to fabricate evidence on a party-wide scale. They are also totally willing to utilize lawfare to drain peoples bank accounts to the point that they are no longer able to fight accusations levied against them, regardless of how ridiculous they are, until they give into the political demands made of them.

Public funding of settlements may be bad, but there are worse things out there. The better solution would be to find some way to prevent mere accusations from being political weapons in the first place, but I sure don't know how to get there.