Thank-you, Gloria Allred

By Thomas Lifson

Gloria Allred may be doing Meg Whitman a favor with her ridiculous stunt accusing Meg Whitman of knowingly employing an illegal alien housekeeper. The story is so full of holes that it is transparently bogus, and will serve to discredit not just Allred and the housekeeper, but possibly Jerry Brown, California's Attorney General.

Hugh Hewitt, law professor, writer, and talk show host, had Gloria Allred on his radio program yesterday, and probed some of the major weaknesses in the case, and wrote about it on Townhall. First, he sums up the charges:

Turns out that Whitman had hired a housekeeper a few years back, after being provided all the necessary documents. Whitman was very serious about complying with the law as any CEO of a major public company ought to be, if only to protect the thousands and thousands of shareholders who cannot afford to have corporate leadership turn out to be law breakers.

Whitman was defrauded. The housekeeper lied. Many years later the housekeeper admitted her lies to Whitman, and Whitman dismissed her.

First the law. Don't believe me. Believe Erwin Chemerinsky, the very liberal dean of the University of California at Irvine Law School. After Allred's press conference I had Erwin on my radio program to state the law, which he did very quickly: Whitman had to fire the housekeeper or break the law.

Then he presents his interview:

She last attacked a Republican candidate for governor when he was leading the polls shortly before a vote when she launched a broadside against Arnold in August of 2003. Her client, Rhonda Miller, alleged sexual harassment. Miller's suit was dismissed.

I began my interview with Allred by asking her how that case turned out. Allred objected to the line of questioning.

I played Erwin's answer to my straightforward question and asked Allred if Erwin had stated the law correctly.. Allred objected to the line of questioning.

I asked Allred if she could state the law. She objected to this line of questioning.

Allred hung up on me when it became obvious that I simply wasn't going to allow her to repeat her allegations without establishing first a theory of the law under which Whitman could be understood to have done anything wrong.

In sum: the only parties to have done anything wrong were the housekeeper, who used false documents to deceive Whitman, the victim, and the employment agency Whitman used to hire a qualified worker. By the way, Whitman paid this housekeeper $23 an hour -- a wage rate at which one could certainly hire a qualified legal worker. The normal reason employers hire illegals is to pay lower wages than a legal worker could command.

Whitman did what the law required of her when she learned of the fraud perpetrated against her. She fired the maid. Allred's press conference featured the maid crying, as if she had been somehow abused.

Jerry Brown, as California AG, now has knowledge of a fraud perpetrated against a Californian. It is his responsibility to prosecute the law breakers - the maid and employment agency. If anything, the case reveals that he has failed to protect Californians attempting to obey the law from fraudsters.

There is more than a month remaining until the election. That is ample time to turn this spectacle back against those who have perpetrated it. Allred is a longtime Brown supporter and donor. Her unwillingness to answer the questions posed by Hugh Hewitt speaks volumes.

This sort of scam could work if timed a few days before the election. So why did Allred launch it prematurely? Probably because the night before her press conference, Whitman cleaned Brown's clock in his debate with Whitman, and it was necessary to change the subject.

Meg Whitman has the brains and savvy to turn this stunt around. And the money necessary to get her story out.