A supervisor at the U.S. government agency responsible for keeping the Capitol, Senate, and House up and running bullied and harassed a subordinate by emailing them “numerous” inappropriate and sexually explicit photos, including a snap of the employee being run over by a truck and another the staffer’s head photoshopped onto a naked man sitting next to Sen. Bernie Sanders.
That’s according to a newly released report from the Architect of the Capitol’s (AOC) Office of Inspector General (OIG), which also found that the same unnamed supervisor, who worked in the Senate Office Buildings, threatened to beat a worker, “frequently shouted” at people, and “printed and displayed an image disparaging a subordinate Hispanic employee because the supervisor thought it was humorous.”
“The supervisor stated they were unaware that the images could be found offensive and created the images to bring humor to the office,” the report states.
ADVERTISEMENT
A forensic examination by the OIG of the supervisor’s agency-issued desktop computer “revealed multiple images of females in lingerie, images of AOC employees, nude images of males and females and explicit digitally altered images,” according to the report.
A subsequent forensic review of the supervisor’s agency-issued iPhone “revealed images of AOC employees, a photo towards an unknown residence taken through an archery scope as well as photos of political figures, including a photo of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi exiting the Russell Senate Office Building.”
Investigators also discovered two pictures of former President Donald Trump, though the OIG report does not include further specifics or say if they had been altered in any way.
Responding to allegations of shouting at underlings, the supervisor at first denied using profanity or threatening anyone, but later admitted telling a subordinate, “I’m going to beat your ass,” amid a disagreement about overtime.
Washington, D.C., attorney Jonathan Puth represents employees facing sexual harassment, workplace discrimination, and unfair treatment. He described the behavior described in the OIG report as “very unusual,” especially because it is “taking place in the halls of the U.S. Senate, where there’s a certain level of decorum expected.”
“It’s horrible behavior that appears to be going on, and the laws are intended to encourage people to come forward to complain, so harassment can be addressed,” Puth told The Daily Beast. “But the description of the harassment here is horrendous, and reflective of a very deep-seated problem here. It does not appear to be occasional or lighthearted, but really highly sexualized and aggressive behavior and conduct by a supervisor.”
The supervisor denied using government-issued equipment to search for, or create, any sexually explicit images, but could not provide any explanation for how the material wound up on their devices, the report states, adding that the accusations were all in fact substantiated by OIG investigators.
The investigation began in late January, when the case was referred to the OIG by the Architect of the Capitol’s Office of Diversity, Inclusion and Dispute Resolution as part of a bullying and sexual harassment investigation.
In 2020, Architect of the Capitol J. Brett Blanton vowed, “I want to reaffirm my commitment to having no tolerance for racism, discrimination or sexual harassment.”
But this is hardly the first time toxic workplace allegations have been leveled against the AOC. In a lawsuit filed earlier this year, Lynn Long, a Black mechanic with a glowing work record said he had repeatedly been called the N-word and physically threatened by a white supervisor, was repeatedly sabotaged by co-workers, and was passed over for promotions due to his race.
Another Black employee alleged in a 2019 lawsuit that he, too, was called the N-word by colleagues, and found a noose hanging from a piece of equipment he was told to inspect.
Also in 2019, a female AOC painter sued the agency after she said, among other things, that she was instructed to wear revealing costumes during holiday events, and was told to “go bend over” in the superintendent’s office if she wanted a promotion.
AOC staffers have long complained about managers displaying pornography at work. In one instance, an AOC employee was the one with porn on their phone, having also “bragged on separate occasions about having sex with a minor while visiting Central America several years prior,” a separate OIG report claimed.
Last year, another AOC staffer was accused of using homophobic and racial slurs during an interaction with a Capitol Police officer who wanted the employee to submit to a routine search at the building entrance.
Many AOC workers said they are afraid to speak up for fear of retaliation, the OIG reported to Congress in 2019.
Les Alderman, Long’s attorney, told The Daily Beast that the Architect of the Capitol’s office is “unique,” in that “you find this stuff everywhere, but the density of the claims at the Architect—there is a lot of this relative to the size of the workforce.”
“You’d think that a responsible employer would take action immediately,” Alderman said. “What I can tell you is, [at the AOC], in my experience, that has not been so. They usually circle the wagons around the supervisor.”
The latest AOC supervisor to find themselves in hot water also misused sick leave, the new OIG report says, concluding, “The case is closed and management action is pending.”
This doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll be fired, according to Puth.
“Unfortunately though, it’s oftentimes the case that people in supervisory positions who feel free to engage in this type of behavior feel free to do so because they’ve been afforded a certain amount of power in the workplace and sometimes it's not so easy to get rid of [them],” Puth told The Daily Beast. “We find quite regularly, astonishingly, that people who harass employees are allowed to continue serving in their positions, and it's that power that gives them permission to continue to engage in this type of behavior.”
The Architect of the Capitol did not respond to The Daily Beast’s request for comment.
