Original story:
www.bbc.com/…
“The allegations, published by Portland Monthly magazine [owned by one of the accusers] and ProPublica, date back to before he became an ambassador.
At the time of the alleged incidents he was developing hotels in Portland and Seattle in the Pacific Northwest.
Mr Sondland denies all of the allegations, and accuses the women of targeting him for his role in President Donald Trump's impeachment hearings.
"These untrue claims of unwanted touching and kissing are concocted and, I believe, co-ordinated for political purposes," he said in a statement.
"They have no basis in fact, and I categorically deny them."”
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Given the timing of the disclosures, IMHO it is very clear that, whether or not they are true or have any merit at all to them, the motivation for going public with them at this time are to discredit Sondland because of his testimony against Trump.
Strengthening the conclusion that it was politically motivated is the observation that one of the accusers owned one of the two magazines it was published in and could have published it at any time she wished — which raises the question of “Why NOW?”
Is this the Julian Assange (alleged) Rape case V2.0? (note that AFTER the alleged rape case against Assange had accomplished its purpose, Norway withdrew the charges and the woman involved state that she wished she’d never made the accusation.
Sexual misconduct is, of course, entirely unacceptable. And there is considerable merit in raising such charges (IF they are valid, of course) at critical times to try to prevent people from being appointed into positions for which their record of conduct renders them unsuitable.
But IMHO it does the general cause of fighting sexual misconduct considerable harm when such charges are brought up with the intent of discrediting critical witnesses. This causes considerable damage in at least two ways:
1) by obscuring whatever process the witness was testifying in (except where his/her sexual misconduct was germane to what was being investigated)
2) damaging the cause of resisting sexual misconduct by using it for partisan political purposes
Whether or not they are true, THE TIMING suggests that they are being used as a political tool in inappropriate ways — which they generally are with such timing when the individual accused is not up for a position for which such conduct renders him/her unsuitable and the conduct is not germane to the investigation . And if you allow yourself to be used as a political tool it will inevitably damage your credibility. This is particularly important for an issue like sexual misconduct where credibility is far more important than it generally is for other issues.