One woman who accused Cain of sexual harassment now works for Obama

POST WIRE SERVICES
Last Updated: 4:28 PM, November 8, 2011
Posted: 12:27 PM, November 8, 2011

GOP presidential hopeful Herman Cain argues that he's no sexual harasser -- but friends and family members of one accuser were only trying to right a wrong no woman should suffer in the workplace.

Karen Kraushaar, a 55-year-old former journalist who currently works for the Obama administration, was outed today as one of the three women who had filed sexual harassment complaints against Cain.

“She wouldn’t be the type to make false allegations,” brother-in-law Ned Kraushaar, a Georgia software consultant, told The Daily. “This happened [more than] 10 years ago. It’s not like she wanted to try and hurt the Republican Party.”

Until now, three of the four women who had lodged complaints against Cain had remained anonymous.

Kraushaar now serves as a communications director at the Inspector General’s Office of the Treasury Department, a position she has held since 2010.

She is “an extraordinarily good person,” said Jennie Williams, a friend and Atlanta equestrian. “She is very reliable and has lots of integrity. I don’t know what happened. I don’t want to know. Enough is enough. She is quality.”

Kraushaar did not return phone calls left by The Daily.

Politico first reported that two women had accused Cain, who leads many polls in the Republican presidential race, of sexual advances throughout the 1990s.

A fourth woman, Sharon Bialek, came forward yesterday.

At the same time, Cain’s presidential campaign is assailing the woman who accused him of groping her while she sought a job, presumably in an effort to undercut her credibility.

The Republican businessman’s advisers issued a news release Tuesday asking “Who is Sharon Bialek?” That document then outlines what it calls her “long and troubled history, from the courts to personal finances.”

It lists civil lawsuits that allegedly relate to her in the Cook County Court system in Illinois. It also quotes news reports mentioning her involvement in a paternity case and a bankruptcy filing.

The document contrasts that record with what it says is Cain’s “four decades spent climbing the corporate ladder rising to the level of CEO at multiple successful business enterprises.”

With AP