Governor's Adviser Jimmy Soni Is Again Exhibit A in Bombshell Sex Harassment Report
Jimmy Soni, a former aide to Governor Eric Greitens, is in the news again this week — and Greitens isn't answering questions about why a man who was accused of sexual harassment was on his campaign payroll as recently as September.
As Greitens was preparing to take office as Missouri governor last year, he started getting questions about his hiring of Soni to be his administration's top communications adviser. In 2014, Soni had left a managing editor position at the Huffington Post amid a cloud of suspicion that his ouster was in fact connected to a pattern of sexual harassment.
Not surprisingly, the hiring drew condemnation from the state's Democratic Party, but Greitens brushed off criticism with his trademark bluster. In January, Greitens dodged questions about Soni from the Springfield News-Leader, saying that he would not respond "to the kind of ridiculous allegations of desperate political opponents who are just bringing up unfounded accusations from the past."
Still, about three months later, Soni left the job, which had come with a $119,158 salary. Greitens spokesman Parker Briden told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that the separation was amicable: "The plan had always been for him to help us during the transition and the early days of governing, and then move on to prepare for his upcoming book launch in July and spend time with his young family."
Read more: https://www.riverfronttimes.com/newsblog/2017/11/16/governors-advisor-jimmy-soni-is-again-exhibit-a-in-bombshell-sex-harassment-report