The press are still trying to rehabilitate disgraced former Democratic Rep. Katie Hill of California, who resigned from Congress in 2019 to avoid an ethics investigation into her sexual abuse of a campaign staffer.
Hill, who may have also misappropriated campaign funds to continue paying said campaign staffer for nearly a year after the election, and who also awarded an unusually large bonus to a legislative aide with whom she was also reportedly romantically involved, maintains she is the real victim. Like a textbook narcissist and abuser, Hill believes she is the wronged party, her malfeasance is defensible, and the entire world is conspiring against her.
Amazingly, legacy media are still going along with Hill’s self-serving narrative, which is amusing considering her narrative is predicated on the belief everyone is out to get her.
Vanity Fair, for example, has published a noxious puff piece, one of many such pieces published since Hill’s resignation, revealing she is having a baby with former Playboy correspondent Alex Thomas, who spearheaded a hilariously failed one-man campaign in 2019 to prove the former congresswoman was the victim of a baseless, shadowy Republican hit job.
“I’m hungry for a Pulitzer,” the now-self-described novelist boasted shortly after news of Hill’s sexual misconduct broke. “Let’s chase the f***ing rabbit.”
Thomas obviously uncovered no such GOP-led conspiracy. He was awarded no Pulitzer. Oh, also, Thomas failed to disclose his romantic relationship with Hill during the period in which he tried, and failed, to exonerate her. The two had been involved for about four months when news of her “throuple” relationship with the campaign staffer was first reported.
For the record, Thomas denied as late as February 2020 that he and Hill were romantically entangled. He maintained they were just friends.
Now Vanity Fair reports they are expecting a child. Chasing the rabbit, indeed.
“The relationship between Hill and Thomas, a former Playboy reporter turned novelist, was something of a sideshow to the broader scandal,” Vanity Fair reports. “Specifically, Hill’s relationship with a campaign staffer. But for Hill’s opponents, it was further ammo.”
The “relationship” with a campaign staffer, by the way, left the young aide, whom Hill allegedly coaxed into threesomes with Hill’s then-husband Kenny Heslep, in a state the abused woman describes as a “mess.”
In fact, a former Katie Hill staffer in October 2020 laid into the disgraced former lawmaker, laying waste to the ex-congresswoman’s contention that she is the real victim.
“Katie Hill is not a hero for women,” the alleged former staffer tweeted from Hill’s congressional Twitter account. “Katie took advantage of her subordinates. She caused immense harm to the people who worked for her, many of whom were young women just beginning their careers in politics.”
Despite all of this, Hill, the woman who fled Congress before an ethics committee could investigate her abuse of a campaign worker eight years her subordinate, misconduct to which the former congresswoman admits, maintains she is the victim of a hypocritical, patriarchal society. This, of course, is nonsense. The great irony is that being a woman is precisely why an otherwise unforgiving press have been so eager to dismiss and ignore her misconduct. Victim of the patriarchy, indeed.
No, really, ask yourself this: If a male lawmaker had done what Hill did, would we be reading pieces like the one published in Vanity Fair and elsewhere?
If a male lawmaker resigned after admitting to enlisting a young campaign staffer in a “throuple” relationship and then shopped his comeback story to the press, would the press oblige? If this same lawmaker were also accused of financially rewarding a legislative aide with whom he was reportedly having an affair, would we be reading about his inspiring redemption arc?
If this same lawmaker later fathered a child with a reporter who used disinformation to cast doubt on said lawmaker’s admitted sexual misconduct, all while declining to disclose a monthslong romantic relationship, would we have soft-glow photo shoots such as the one published this week in Vanity Fair?
I think you know the answer.
