A watchdog group called the Campaign for Accountability is attempting to unseal the divorce records of fast-food businessman Andrew Puzder, President Trump’s pick for secretary of labor, saying that past allegations of spousal abuse may be relevant to Puzder’s nomination.
Puzder’s ex-wife has repeatedly disavowed the claim and has written an extensive letter to the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee explaining that she made up the accusations in a fit of rage and to gain leverage in their divorce proceedings.
“Before the U.S. Senate votes on whether Mr. Pudzer is qualified to lead an agency charged with protecting the safety of American workers — including millions of women — the public is entitled to full information about Mr. Pudzer’s record. Reports of physical domestic abuse are far too serious to be brushed aside. If Mr. Puzder has nothing to fear and the allegations are nonexistent, he can easily put this issue to rest by simply instructing his attorney not to contest the motion to unseal the records,” the nonprofit group said Monday. A Missouri court is scheduled to consider the nonprofit’s petition Tuesday.
Puzder is chief executive officer of CKE Restaurants, which owns the Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr. franchises. His first committee hearing is set for Thursday. His nomination has been the target of numerous attacks from liberal groups, particularly organized labor, who oppose putting the outspoken conservative in charge of the department. His hearing has been delayed numerous times due to Senate Democrats raising concerns over how he divested his personal investments. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., sent a 28-page letter of questions to the nominee Monday laying out the Left’s case against him.
As part of that campaign, numerous groups have raised the fact that during their 1989 divorce, Puzder’s wife, Lisa Fierstein, previously Lisa Henning, accused him of spousal abuse. Around the same time she appeared, anonymously, on an episode of the Orpah Winfrey show devoted to the subject of domestic violence.
Fierstein has repeatedly disavowed the three-decade-old claim and says she and Puzder are now friends. In a letter last month to the committee, she said: “First, let me be clear. Andy is not and was not abusive or violent. He is a good, loving, kind man and a deeply committed and loving father,” she said.
The claim of abuse was the result of both anger over the breakup and bad advice from her attorney, she said: “I wish with all of my heart that I could take back those moments of anger and rage. I deeply regret many of the decisions I made while young and hurt and misled by faulty advice of someone I trusted. I wish instead that I could tell you about Andy and his compassion, kindness and generosity… The fact that my attorney used ‘adult abuse’ as a vehicle to gain leverage in our divorce proceedings has haunted me as well as our children to this day.”
The Oprah appearance, she said, was the result of becoming “caught up in the notion of a free trip to Chicago and being a champion of women’s issues.”
The nonprofit’s press release makes no reference to Fierstein’s disavowals. Asked why the nonprofit was pursuing unsealing the records in light of the letter, a spokesman told the Washington Examiner they would get back with an answer.
The Campaign for Accountability was created in 2015 and states that its mission is to use “research, litigation and aggressive communications to expose misconduct and malfeasance in public life” that caused “by decisions made behind the doors of corporate boardrooms, government offices, and shadowy nonprofit groups.” Its executive director is Anne Weismann, formerly chief counsel for the nonprofit liberal group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. It is not clear where the campaign gets its funding.
