During remarks on the Senate floor, Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) spoke about alleged reports of gross misconduct and harassment at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation under the oversight of FDIC Chair Martin Gruenberg
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NewsTranscript
00:00 I want to talk, Madam President, about a topic I hate to talk about.
00:10 It's very unpleasant.
00:17 But it's necessary that we talk about this.
00:29 Some of my colleagues want it to go away, but it's not going away.
00:35 I thought, Madam President, that we had all agreed that sexual predators and bigots are not welcome in America's workplaces.
00:53 We've all heard of the #MeToo movement. The #MeToo movement, President Biden endorsed it.
01:01 Many of my colleagues have actively supported it, as have I.
01:07 The #MeToo movement reminded us all that America is no place for creepy old men who sexually harass and demean their employees.
01:24 I thought we had agreed to that.
01:28 I don't remember seeing any exceptions in the #MeToo movement for President Biden's appointees to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.
01:43 We call it the FDIC.
01:46 There's not supposed to be a carve-out for bigots and perverts at the FDIC to harass their co-workers when they're supposed to be regulating America's banks.
02:02 So why hasn't President Biden shown FDIC Chairman Martin Gruenberg and his leadership team the door?
02:16 Why hasn't he fired them?
02:20 Based on the latest report from the agency, not a single Biden appointee should keep his or her job at the FDIC.
02:34 Now, Mr. Gruenberg released a statement a few minutes ago.
02:42 He didn't say he resigned.
02:47 He said he's prepared to resign as soon as his successor is confirmed by the United States Senate.
02:59 In the meantime, he's going to continue on as FDIC Chairman.
03:07 It triggers my gag reflex.
03:11 I mentioned this report.
03:17 This report, 234 pages, it was done by a law firm called Cleary Gottlieb at the request of the FDIC.
03:26 The FDIC and Mr. Gruenberg were forced to ask for this report because the Wall Street Journal published a series of articles about the sex capades at the FDIC.
03:46 And the FDIC leadership was forced to respond.
03:50 Cleary Gottlieb issued this report.
03:54 I was very suspected at first because Mr. Gruenberg and others had picked Cleary Gottlieb to do it.
04:02 But after the report's been issued and I've had a chance to read it, it's clear to me that the law firm, as it should have, pulled no punches.
04:14 The report tells us that nearly one in ten employees, one in ten, at the FDIC has experienced sexual harassment, racial discrimination, verbal abuse, or other inappropriate behavior while working at the agency.
04:38 I want you to listen to this.
04:40 I hate to have to say it, but I want the American people to understand what's been going on under Mr. Gruenberg's leadership at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.
04:59 This is what the report told us.
05:03 One Hispanic employee told investigators with the Cleary Gottlieb law firm that his FDIC supervisor made him recite the Pledge of Allegiance at work to "prove" that they were American.
05:24 Another FDIC employee reported that her supervisor told her, "You're a mother. You don't belong in the workplace."
05:41 The report goes on. One senior FDIC official who had a reputation for visiting brothels during his work trips, isn't that special, sent his co-worker a photograph of his penis.
06:01 Another senior FDIC official who allegedly was thrown out of a strip club during a work trip because he groped the dancers, this official the same day asked his female co-worker,
06:22 "Does your husband eat you?"
06:31 An FDIC field officer pursued sexual relationships with several female employees, including a student intern.
06:41 Another employee reported that a former FDIC executive "grabbed her and rubbed himself on her after a peppy hour."
06:57 One female employee recounted more than six years of persistent sexual harassment from a senior FDIC bank examiner.
07:12 She said the examiner continuously sent her disturbing text messages, including one that said, "Get naked, bitch."
07:26 The employee said the behavior bordered on the edge of stalking.
07:32 You think?
07:35 Look, I could go on for hours here. I'm not sure my stomach can stand it.
07:44 In total, there are 6,000 workers at the FDIC. In total, more than 500 reported misconduct by their bosses.
07:58 Creepy old men. They reported 145 incidents of sexual harassment, 436 reports of gender, sexuality, or race-based discrimination, and 320 incidents of verbal abuse and bullying.
08:20 The investigators in this report noted that many of these employees had never previously reported the harassment
08:29 because the employees at the FDIC had a real and widespread fear of retaliation from the agency's management.
08:41 The FDIC employees who did report through the years, who did report their harassment to the agency, quickly realized that it was a mistake and a waste of time.
08:56 From 2015 to 2023, 92 brave employees directly reported incidents and instances of harassment or abuse to the agency.
09:11 Good for them.
09:14 The management at the FDIC didn't fire or demote or dock the pay of a single creep because of these reports.
09:25 In fact, the FDIC often punished the victims rather than the predators.
09:33 They would move the victims from the victim's job.
09:39 Not the predator. The predator got to stay. The victims were moved.
09:44 It didn't matter if they were experienced. It didn't matter if the victim enjoyed his or her job. They had to move because a creep was molesting them.
09:55 In fact, when a male examiner called his colleague "a grizzly bear with tits," the FDIC relocated the woman.
10:13 Instead of the man who made the comment.
10:18 Again, I'm sorry to do this, but I'm just reciting the details of just eight of the hundreds of reports of harassment at the FDIC.
10:30 Now, FDIC Chairman, Mr. Martin Gruenberg, he's been a top official at the FDIC for two decades.
10:43 As the FDIC has devolved into what apparently is a hellscape for its employees.
10:50 Mr. Gruenberg has been chairman of the FDIC for 10 of the last 13 years.
10:57 He started at the agency in 2005.
11:03 Mr. Gruenberg didn't just supervise the harassment at the FDIC. According to the report, he participated in it.
11:13 According to Mr. Gruenberg's employees, Chairman Gruenberg repeatedly "disrespected, disparaged, and mistreated" his staff.
11:26 Not the predators, but his staff that was trying to help him manage the agency.
11:36 According to the report, Mr. Gruenberg would berate them, threaten to fire them, participate in "embarrassing and inappropriate" group chats with them,
11:49 and throw temper tantrums where he'd throw papers his staff prepared for him against the wall.
11:57 One of his wall staff members told investigators, "In my entire career of 35 years, I've never had anybody treat me like that."
12:17 Reports of Chairman Gruenberg's abusive behavior range from 2007 to just last year,
12:30 showing that he's been a menace to his employees for as long as anyone can remember.
12:40 Yet when my friends in the House of Representatives asked him if he'd ever been formally accused of abuse,
12:47 you know what he said? He seemed to forget that he was the target of an abuse allegation. He said no.
12:55 He had to go back and later correct the record to confirm that he was.
13:02 Mr. Gruenberg didn't just struggle with holding himself responsible for bad behavior, but he also refused to hold others accountable too.
13:14 He even handpicked a known abuser. He picked one of these creepy old men,
13:23 someone whose outbursts had cost the FDIC more than $100,000 in a settlement for a key promotion to serve as the FDIC's general counsel.
13:40 Employees told investigators that they expect Chairman Gruenberg's leadership team to "pay, promote, or move" the serial predators within the FDIC.
13:54 It's all in the report.
13:58 Mr. Gruenberg has not once, not once, taken responsibility for his failed leadership.
14:07 He said he was sorry, but he's never taken responsibility.
14:12 When he was speaking with the investigators who compiled this report, Mr. Gruenberg denied every single solitary allegation.
14:23 Now, the role of the investigators was not to advise the FDIC about whether Mr. Gruenberg and his leadership team should resign.
14:33 But if you read the report, 200 plus pages, it's clear what they think.
14:38 The investigators said Mr. Gruenberg's "apparent inability or unwillingness to recognize how others experience certain difficult interactions with him would make it difficult"
14:57 I would use the word "impossible" for him to restore the FDIC to something that resembles a respectable workplace.
15:10 Chairman Gruenberg is far from the only bad apple at the FDIC. That much is clear from the report.
15:18 Not everyone is a bad apple at the FDIC.
15:21 There are many employees who are very good employees there, but not all of them.
15:29 And they've been getting away with this for years.
15:33 In my opinion, after you read this report, you would conclude that everyone in senior management either knew of the gross, disgusting, and bigoted behavior and did nothing,
15:49 or they've proven themselves to be such incompetent leaders that they don't deserve to oversee a pet goldfish, much less a federal agency.
16:03 If the executives at the FDIC had any sense of decency, they would resign.
16:11 Today, not issue some weenie statement that, "Yeah, I know things are bad at the FDIC, and I'll consider resigning as soon as the Senate confirms my successor, but I'm going to continue on in the meantime."
16:31 That's the statement that Mr. Gruenberg issued.
16:34 And you know what we've heard out of the Biden White House?
16:38 Nothing. Zero. Zilch. Nada.
16:51 If I could fire Mr. Gruenberg, I would.
16:56 But the only person who can fire Mr. Gruenberg is President Biden.
17:03 Yet no one at the White House wants to talk about this.
17:09 No one seems interested in firing Chairman Gruenberg or demanding his resignation.
17:14 Instead, and President Biden won't even address it, he sent a spokeswoman out to suggest that President Biden has not fired Mr. Gruenberg because, quote,
17:32 "Chairman Gruenberg apologized and has committed to the recommendations that have been provided by the independent report."
17:40 Let me get this straight.
17:42 Chairman Gruenberg is going to implement the recommendations which investigated the abuse while he was chairman of the FDIC.
17:55 Let's take a look at a few of the recommended changes that President Biden thinks Chairman Gruenberg is qualified to implement.
18:02 One recommendation that the report includes says that the FDIC must work to protect the victims of sexual harassment, discrimination and bullying.
18:13 You think?
18:16 How is Mr. Gruenberg, who issued a statement today saying, "Well, I might resign as soon as the Senate confirms my successor."
18:27 How is Mr. Gruenberg, who's proven for more than two decades that he has no interest in protecting his employees, supposed to get that job done?
18:38 He won't even admit that he's a bully.
18:42 How does the White House think he's going to recognize and deter other bullies and predators?
18:48 Another recommendation in the report is to enact a culture transformation, a culture transformation within the FDIC.
19:00 The investigators recommended that the board of the FDIC hire an individual to oversee this transformation.
19:09 I thought that's why we had a chairman.
19:13 I thought that's why we had a chairman.
19:16 If Mr. Gruenberg's past hiring decisions are any indication, he and the board will probably promote the agency's top pervert to the post.
19:30 The most important recommendation the investigators made, in my view, is that the FDIC must hold leadership accountable for their harassment.
19:43 Does President Biden really believe, does he really believe that Chairman Gruenberg is going to hold himself accountable?
19:53 Are the dozens of creepy old men that the chairman has protected for two decades?
20:01 Put down the bong.
20:05 Wouldn't firing Mr. Gruenberg and every other bigot or predator in senior management at the FDIC be the obvious first step in holding leadership accountable for this abuse?
20:20 As one employee put it, allowing Mr. Gruenberg to oversee improvements to the FDIC's culture is like, quote, "Foxes guarding the henhouse."
20:35 I'd put it another way.
20:38 It's like asking Alec Baldwin to teach a course on gun safety.
20:45 Mr. Gruenberg and every single member of senior management ought to hide their heads in a bag.
20:54 The Me Too movement ought to mean something, and frankly, the White House should hide its head in a bag.
21:01 I don't read an exception to moral order in the Me Too movement for the FDIC, because Mr. Gruenberg happens to be of a particular party, the same party as the presidents.
21:21 These folks ought to quit, and they ought to quit today, and if they don't, President Biden should fire them.
21:31 Anything short of firing them will show that President Biden condones this behavior.
21:41 The FDIC employees, and there are many good ones, they're only responsible for making sure that our banks are secure in the wealthiest and most powerful country in all of human history.
22:00 Those FDIC employees deserve a professional workplace.
22:07 They deserve a workplace where they can do their jobs with dignity.
22:12 And young women don't deserve to be sexually harassed and sent pictures of their bosses' genitals.
22:22 The taxpayers deserve this too, and the banks being examined deserve this as well.
22:32 You know, when President Biden took office in 2021, I remember in one of his press conferences, I don't know how the subject came up, but the subject of appropriate workplace conduct came up,
22:49 and President Biden correctly said that he would fire on the spot any appointee who disrespected other members of his staff.
23:02 Those are the president's words, on the spot.
23:07 And he told his appointees that he expected them to do the same.
23:15 The evidence, Madam President, is plentiful that Chairman Grunberg disrespected his staff and allowed a toxic culture to bloom at the FDIC.
23:28 He should resign.
23:31 He should resign immediately.
23:36 It's time to clean house at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.
23:45 Madam President, I yield the floor.