Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill’s husband was accused of domestic violence by his ex-wife, and his company once victim-blamed a woman who sued for sexual misconduct, Fox News has learned.
A graphic protection order once filed by Joseph Shepard’s ex-wife even alleged he hit her, tripped her and “peed on” her.
Shepard, who married McCaskill in 2002, has come under increasing scrutiny amid media reports detailing his financial decisions and wealth-building while his wife was in office. He reportedly has received more than $131 million in federal subsidies since 2007, the year McCaskill became a U.S. senator, and also invested $1 million in a hedge fund in the Cayman Islands, a tax haven his wife wants to crack down on.
His Democratic senator wife is currently facing a challenge from Republican state Attorney General Josh Hawley in one of the tightest races in the upcoming midterms. Multiple polls indicate the candidates are virtually tied.
The allegations against Shepard and the sexual harassment lawsuit against his company date back years, but nevertheless are a startling backdrop to the senator’s message regarding sexual harassment.
In a 2015 letter about sexual harassment, McCaskill wrote that “Victim-blaming in the context of sexual violence is as old as the crime itself” and that some “law enforcement officials sometimes unwilling to pursue justice because of the victim’s behavior prior to the crime.”
“’She was asking for it,’ is a sentence I have longed to see stripped from our cultural vocabulary,” she added. McCaskill also said multiple times that she believes women and their allegations of sexual misconduct.
In 1993, Shepard’s then-13-year-old daughter called the police to report that her mother, Suzanne Shepard, was a victim of a late-night assault, according to a police report obtained by Fox News. Shepard was listed as the only involved person. No charges were filed after the incident.
Five years later, in 1998, police were called again to the Shepard house. The police reported the wife claiming Shepard came to retrieve a carpet from the house and got involved in a dispute over marital problems. He then “proceeded to grab her right arm and push her,” the incident report read.
A 1998 police report. (Fox News)
The incident prompted the wife to file an adult abuse petition for order of protection against Shepard, where she provided additional details on what happened that night.
“Police called by friend in my home. Joseph entered my home. I told him to leave. He came up to me looking angry,” she wrote. “I put my hands up to protect my breasts as they are sore (cancer). He has hit me before in the breast. He grabbed my wrist and arm and pushed me up against the wall & I hit my head & back & he bruised my arms by pinching me.”
“I put my hands up to protect my breasts as they are sore (cancer). He has hit me before in the breast. He grabbed my wrist and arm and pushed me up against the wall & I hit my head & back & he bruised my arms by pinching me.”
— Suzanne Shepard
Shepard told the police officers at the time that his wife got physical first. “He said while he was attempting to load the [carpet] Mrs. Shepard began pushing him trying to get him out of the house,” police report states.
Fox News could not reach Suzanne Shepard, while the McCaskill campaign did not respond to multiple requests for a comment or an interview. Joseph Shepard also did not return requests for comment.
The protection order she filed against Shepard also recalled other previous incidents of alleged abuse.
“I am afraid of respondent and there is an immediate and present danger of abuse or stalking of me,” she claimed in the report. “He has tripped me, hit me before (police were called by my daughter), punched my cancer breast, peed on me, pushed me down and slapped me.”
“He now threatens that everything I have is his and I will end up in his low income housing and he wants to take my things,” she added.
“I am afraid of respondent and there is an immediate and present danger of abuse or stalking of me,” she claimed in the report. “He has tripped me, hit me before (police were called by my daughter), punched my cancer breast, peed on me, pushed me down and slapped me.”
— Suzanne Shepard
In later years, accusations of misconduct were also leveled against his businesses. Sugar Creek Realty – a company founded and owned by Shepard – was sued in 2009 in federal court for sexual harassment, prompting a campaign by the firm’s lawyers against the accuser.
Kristin Glemser accused the company and her female boss there of sexual misconduct, including allegedly asking her put on already-worn underwear, following her into a restroom, unbuttoning her pants without her consent, taking pictures of her in underwear without her consent and forcing her to watch her female boss simulate a sex act with another woman.
She said in a complaint obtained by Fox News that she “suffered mental anguish, inconvenience, embarrassment, the loss of the enjoyment of life and loss of employment” as a result of the incidents. In a deposition in court, the woman reiterated the claims she made in the complaint. Fox News couldn’t contact Glemser.
She also said Shepard’s company turned a blind eye to the rampant alleged harassment. Glemser said she “verbally” reported the incidents, but the employee responsible for dealing with such incidents “chose to do nothing about it” and tried to convince her to “go back to work” instead.
Sugar Creek initially defended against the allegations of sexual harassment, saying they weren’t aware of the accusations and the woman didn’t go through the reporting process as according to the company rules.
But in a February 2011 motion for summary judgment, Sugar Creek’s lawyers argued that her sexual misconduct claims weren’t “sufficiently severe or pervasive,” she was a “willing participant” in the “modeling” of the underwear, and she didn’t follow the company policy.
The lawyers also went on to diminish Glemser’s credibility by pointing out to her previous career as a model, asking her whether some of her modeling “pictures show you in considerably less clothing” than during the incidents she spoke about.
The company also filed a motion to make the woman’s modeling pictures part of the evidence in the case of sexual harassment in the workplace because her previous career indicated to her colleague that she “had no reason” to not be “willing to participate in modeling the [underwear].”
The accuser ultimately lost the case for employer liability after the court ruled that her claims failed because she “never returned to work.”
No one with half a brain would say these people are damn crooks.
The Mueller witch hunt is effectively over — not because Mr. Mueller had not planned to drag this out until he could concoct a crime against Mr. Trump or a member of his family but rather because the jig is up.
Have you noticed how long it has been since anyone even suggested that the president sit down with the “special counsel” for an interview?
Mueller’s raison d’etre was the outrageous and purposely propagandized prevarication that the Trump campaign and even Mr. Trump himself “colluded” with Russia to rig the 2016 presidential election against Hillary Clinton.
The Democrats who perpetrated this fraud are not only masters of projection and deception, but they took their playbook of personal destruction to a whole new level.
There is more evidence by the day that the Clinton cabal, in and outside of government, weaponized our most venerable law enforcement institutions and agencies, abused protected government data, unmasked citizens and lied to our courts to destroy the political opposition.
Enough evidence has been forcibly extracted from various sources to establish that the actual crimes — conspiracy, fraud, obstruction of justice, espionage act violations and no doubt others — were committed by Clinton and her campaign with the calculated help of their power-crazed cronies within the FBI, CIA, NSA, Obama White House, the Department of Justice, the State Department, FusionGPS and probably even partners in the law firm of Perkins Coie who helped craft the “mosaic” of lies.
Heaven knows that is not what Mueller and his Clinton-loving cabal of prosecutors wanted to find — and they clearly avoided looking for it.
President Trump holds all the cards now.
The White House has seen enough of the actual documents to know the real conspirators were willing to destroy the Constitution and innocent lives to elect Hillary Clinton, protect Barack Obama, and destroy Donald Trump. As Congressman John Ratcliffe explained to Maria Bartiromo, these documents were classified only to protect the wrongdoers—not national security.
Indeed, each time documents have been unredacted, we’ve seen even more evidence of egregious wrongdoing.
While many are thrilled that the president—and no doubt Robert Mueller–know the truth, there is even more at stake here than exoneration of the president.
Americans have witnessed the annihilation of our most important law enforcement institutions. It is simply not enough for the president to know the truth and for Mueller’s witch hunt to end.
For the country to recover from this previously unfathomable cover-up of Clinton’s crimes and the criminalization of our election process and justice system, every individual whose fingerprints appear on any of these crimes must be publicly exposed and held to account.
The deliberate and subversive conduct of all involved were not only crimes against Mr. Trump — now the president. They were crimes against our Constitution, law enforcement institutions, federal courts, every American, and the Rule of Law writ large.
The president must declassify the following for the sake of the American people:
The names of the private contractors to whom FBI Director Comey gave unlawful access to raw FISA data in 2015 — if not before — as shown in the opinion of FISC Chief Judge Rosemary Collyer in April 2017.
All emails or texts among any government officials in any agency or the Obama White House that mention the Steele dossier, unmaskings of American citizens, or “Russia collusion” prior to your inauguration and thereafter until Mueller appointed Special Counsel.
All memos, FBI 302s, and emails indicating the targeting and interview of General Flynnonce he joined the Trump team and any recording — oral, reported or written — of the remarks of Andrew McCabe that mention Flynn or Donald Trump.
All the FISA applications, including the ones the court first denied, that were based in any part on the “Steele dossier” and the names of all persons in the FBI or DOJ who worked on those applications.
The classified section of the Inspector General’s report regarding the pre-election conduct and leaks by the FBI and DOJ.
The laptop of Anthony Weiner on which the New York FBI agents reported seeing the “entire Clinton email file” — 675,000 emails.
All documents demanded by Congress that have not yet been produced and on which the FBI and DOJ continue to stonewall.
The chips must fall as they may. No rational American can trust our institutions of government again until the Truth is outed and so is everyone whose fingerprints have touched any aspect of this calculated corruption of justice.
A biological male who identifies as a transgender woman won a women’s world championship cycling event on Sunday.
Rachel McKinnon, a professor at the College of Charleston, won the women’s sprint 35-39 age bracket at the 2018 UCI Masters Track Cycling World Championships in Los Angeles.
McKinnon, representing Canada, bested Carolien Van Herrikhuyzen of the Netherlands and American cyclist Jennifer Wagner to take home the gold.
McKinnon celebrated the victory on Twitter, writing: “First transgender woman world champion…ever.”
“We cannot have a woman legally recognized as a trans woman in society, and not be recognized that way in sports,” McKinnon told USA Today.
“Focusing on performance advantage is largely irrelevant because this is a rights issue. We shouldn’t be worried about trans people taking over the Olympics. We should be worried about their fairness and human rights instead.”
McKinnon also compared restrictions on biological males competing in women’s events to racial segregation.
“This is bigger than sports, and it’s about human rights,” McKinnon said to USA Today.
“By catering to cisgender people’s views, that furthers transgender people’s oppression. When it comes to extending rights to a minority population, why would we ask the majority? I bet a lot of white people were pissed off when we desegregated sports racially and allowed black people. But they had to deal with it.”
Thursday on MSNBC’s “The Beat,” Georgetown University professor Michael Eric Dyson criticized hip-hop artist Kanye West’s appearance in the Oval Office earlier in the day with President Donald Trump.
Dyson hammered West for various aspects of the White House appearance and accused the West of being a vehicle for white supremacy.
“This is white supremacy by ventriloquism,” Dyson said. “A black mouth is moving, but white racist ideals are flowing from Kanye’s mouth.”
Al Gore Should Be Arrested For Making Millions Off The Fake Man Mad Global Warming.
A $240 PER GALLON GAS TAX TO FIGHT GLOBAL WARMING? NEW UN REPORT SUGGESTS CARBON PRICING
A new U.N. report suggests a $240 per gallon gas tax equivalent is needed to fight global warming.
The U.N. says a carbon tax would need to be as high as $27,000 per ton in the year 2100.
If you think that’s unlikely to ever happen, you’re probably right.
A United Nations special climate report suggests a tax on carbon dioxide emissions would need to be as high as $27,000 per ton at the end of the century to effectively limit global warming.
Tree Hugging Idiot.
For Americans, that’s the same as a $240 per gallon tax on gasoline in the year 2100, should such a recommendation be adopted. In 2030, the report says a carbon tax would need to be as high as $5,500 — that’s equivalent to a $49 per gallon gas tax.
Political Correctness Gone Amuck.
If you think that’s an unlikely scenario, you’re probably not wrong. However, it’s what the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s report, released Sunday night, sees as a policy option for reducing emissions enough to keep projected warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius.
Nuff Said!
The IPCC’s report is meant to galvanize political support for doubling down on the Paris climate accord ahead of a U.N. climate summit scheduled for December. The report calls for societal changes that are “unprecedented in terms of scale” in order to limit future global warming to below 1.5 degrees Celsius, the stretch goal of the Paris accord.
In order to effectively keep future warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius, the IPCC says carbon taxes would need to range from $135 to $5,500 per ton in 2030, $245 to $13,000 per ton in 2050, $420 to $17,000 per ton in 2070 and $690 to $27,000 per ton in 2100.
To meet the goals of the Paris accord, which seeks to limit future warming to below 2 degrees Celsius, the IPCC says carbon taxes would have range between $10 and $200 in 2030 and $160 and $2,125 in 2100.
That’s equivalent to a gas tax as high as $1.70 per gallon in 2030 to nearly $19 per gallon at the end of the century. That’s less onerous than limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, but still no walk in the park.
California and many European countries have policies to price carbon dioxide emissions and mandate green energy, including cap-and-trade systems and carbon taxes. But carbon prices under those systems are nowhere near where the IPCC says they need to be.
The IPCC said the “price of carbon would need to increase significantly when a higher level of stringency is pursued.” However, the group’s report tacitly acknowledges the unlikelihood that governments will enact astronomical taxes on energy.
“While the price of carbon is central to prompt mitigation pathways compatible with 1.5 [degree Celsius]-consistent pathways, a complementary mix of stringent policies is required,” reads the IPCC’s report.
In the U.S., Republican lawmakers overwhelmingly passed a resolution opposed to carbon taxes in July. Democrats called for a price on carbon dioxide in their 2016 party platform, but they haven’t made much effort on that front since the failure of cap-and-trade legislation in 2010.
Republican Rep. Carlos Curbelo of Florida introduced carbon tax legislation shortly after all but five of his GOP colleagues in the House voted to oppose such a bill. Curbelo’s bill would tax carbon dioxide at $23 a ton — nowhere near what the IPCC calls for.
However, the IPCC suggested a lower carbon tax could be used in conjunction with command and control policies, like regulations and bans on coal plants, could achieve “generate a 1.5˚C pathway for the U.S. electric sector.”
But that point only serves to undermine Curbelo’s bill, which would put a moratorium on some environmental regulations and possibly eliminate some if emissions goals are reached.
The IPCC noted the “literature indicates that the pricing of emissions is relevant but needs to be complemented with other policies to drive the required changes in line with 1.5°C-consistent cost-effective pathways.”
Former FBI General Counsel James Baker shared “explosive” information with Congress last week, according to Republicans.
Sources tell The Daily Caller News Foundation that Baker discussed his interactions with Mother Jones reporter David Corn as well as former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe
Baker said McCabe told him that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein discussed wearing a wire in meetings with President Donald Trump.
Former FBI General Counsel James Baker told Congress in “explosive” testimony about his interactions with a Mother Jones reporter just after the 2016 election as well as a conversation he had last year with then-FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe regarding Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.
Baker recently told lawmakers that David Corn, a reporter at the liberal Mother Jones, provided him a copy of the Steele dossier a day after President Donald Trump’s election win, sources familiar with Baker’s testimony told The Daily Caller News Foundation.
Baker, who resigned from office in May, also told lawmakers that McCabe and his general counsel, Lisa Page, told him in May 2017 that Rosenstein made remarks about wearing a wire during meetings with Trump. Baker’s testimony seems to bolster a Sept. 21 report from The New York Times that cited memos McCabe wrote just after a meeting with Rosenstein in May 2017, shortly after James Comey was fired as FBI director. (RELATED: New York Times Reports That Rod Rosenstein Discussed Wearing A Wire In Conversations With Trump)
The Justice Department has disputed the story, saying that Rosenstein was making a joke in response to a request from McCabe to investigate Trump over his firing of Comey. The report touched off intense speculation about Rosenstein’s job status. He reportedly offered to resign following the report, but the White House rejected the proposal.
Baker told Congress that McCabe and Page took Rosenstein’s remarks seriously. Sources familiar with his testimony said Baker testified that he was not certain whether Rosenstein’s remarks, if said in earnest, were unethical or illegal.
The revelation comes as Rosenstein is scheduled to testify Wednesday before a group of the same lawmakers who interviewed Baker. Members of the House Judiciary and House Oversight & Government Reform committees have created a task force aimed at investigating the FBI and Justice Department’s handling of the Trump-Russia probe as well as the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails.
Republicans on the task force have been heavily critical of Rosenstein amid a battle over documents related to the Russia probe. But some GOP lawmakers held their fire on Rosenstein following The Times report, noting that McCabe had a vested interest in undermining Rosenstein and Trump.
Trump said he has no plans to fire Rosenstein after the two met on Air Force One Monday.
The Justice Department declined to comment on Baker’s testimony regarding Rosenstein. Baker, who is now visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution, did not respond to a request for comment.
GOP Republican Rep. Jim Jordan, a member of both congressional committees, previously called Baker’s Oct. 3 testimony “explosive.”
A few details of Baker’s testimony were previously revealed, including that the former FBI lawyer met weeks before the 2016 election with Michael Sussmann, a lawyer for the firm that commissioned the Steele dossier on behalf of the Clinton campaign and the DNC.
Baker told lawmakers that the documents from Sussmann were related to the Russian hacking of Democrats’ emails. He did not testify that Sussmann provided him a copy of the Steele dossier. Instead, Baker received the document from Corn, the Mother Jones reporter.
Corn was one of a handful of reporters to meet prior to the election with dossier author Christopher Steele, a former MI6 officer. On Oct. 31, 2016, the journalist reported some of Steele’s allegations that members of the Trump campaign were in secret contact with Russian operatives.
In December, Politico reported that congressional Republicans were looking into contacts between Corn and Baker prior to the election. Corn said Baker was not a source for his article.
The Hill reported on July 10 that FBI officials referred to Corn in an email on Jan. 10, 2017, just after BuzzFeed News published the Steele dossier.
“Our internal system is blocking the site,” FBI official Peter Strzok wrote in an email to other top bureau officials. “I have the PDF via iPhone but it’s 25.6MB. Comparing now. The set is only identical to what McCain had. (it has differences from what was given to us by Corn and Simpson.)”
Simpson is Glenn Simpson, the founder of Fusion GPS, the firm that hired Steele to investigate Trump. McCain is late Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain, who provided Comey with a copy of the dossier on Dec. 9, 2016.
Corn did not respond to a request for comment from TheDCNF. He told The Hill in July that he provided a copy of the dossier to the FBI to find out whether the bureau had verified the document.
“I tried the FBI again after the election,” Corn told The Hill’s John Solomon. “On my own accord, I shared a copy of the dossier with the FBI in order to see if the bureau would authenticate the documents and now comment on them. Once again, it would not.”
Corn also denied being a source for the FBI.
“To characterize me as a source of the document is inaccurate. I was merely doing what a journalist does: trying to get more information on a story I was pursuing,” he said.
Claire McCaskill
