Mark Halperin ‘Profoundly Sorry’ for Sexual Harassment: ‘I Had a Problem’ at ABC

Veteran journalist Mark Halperin on Friday afternoon issued a contrite statement apologizing for the many sexual-harassment allegations made against him this week following a CNN exposé. “I am profoundly sorry for the pain and anguish I have caused by my past actions. I apologize sincerely to the women I mistreated,” he wrote. “In recent days I have closely read the accounts of women with whom I worked at ABC News. I have not read these accounts looking for discrepancies or inconsistencies,” Halperin added. “Instead, in almost every case, I have recognized conduct for which I feel profound guilt and responsibility, some involving junior ABC News personnel and women just starting out in the news business.” The journalist said that towards his tenure at ABC News, “I recognized I had a problem... I didn’t need a call from HR to know that I was a selfish, immature person, who was behaving in a manner that had to stop.” He claimed he attended weekly counseling sessions thereafter and did not continue the inappropriate behavior during his next jobs at TIME, NBC News, or Bloomberg. Despite that claim, however, one woman recounted to The Daily Beast a rather uncomfortable interaction with Halperin while she was a college student in 2011—when he worked at NBC.