Las Vegas casino and hotel magnate Steve Wynn has been accused of pressuring employees to perform sex acts with him.
Beyond this incident, dozens of people The Wall Street Journal interviewed who have worked at Mr. Wynn’s casinos told of behavior that cumulatively would amount to a decades-long pattern of sexual misconduct by Mr. Wynn. Some described him pressuring employees to perform sex acts.
That the Wall Street Journal has put this together is admirable, but you’d have to read 18 paragraphs down to find that Steve Wynn is both the finance chair of the Republican National Committee and a pal of Donald Trump’s.
Mr. Wynn’s political profile also has grown. He is a former casino-business rival of President Donald Trump, who said in 2016 that Mr. Wynn was a “great friend” whose advice he valued. After Mr. Trump’s election, Mr. Wynn became the Republican National Committee’s finance chairman.
Among other ugly ironies, this means that Wynn was the chair of RNC finances while the RNC was attacking Democrats for having taken donations from Harvey Weinstein. But Wynn’s proclivities were such an “open secret” that people in his organization regularly made plans to work around his assaults on female workers.
Former employees said they sometimes entered fake appointments in the books to help other female workers get around a request for services in Mr. Wynn’s office or arranged for others to pose as assistants so they wouldn’t be alone with him. They told of female employees hiding in the bathroom or back rooms when they learned he was on the way to the salon.
Wynn’s role at the RNC is entirely thanks to his Trump connection.
Casino mogul Steve Wynn has been a Trump friend and a Trump foe, a Republican booster and a Democratic donor. These days he’s squarely in the president’s camp, and is being rewarded as such.
Wynn’s wealth has delivered a lot of rewards in his life. A chairmanship at the RNC. Donald Trump’s friendship. A long line of female employees who felt they had no choice but to surrender to the pressure from the guy who signed their checks. And it’s not as if some of those employees hadn’t tried to fight back.
The 2005 allegations of the manicurist that led to the settlement were the most striking described by former employees. In this instance, a woman who was a salon manager at the time said she filed a written report to human resources. She said she got a call from an executive, Doreen Whennen, castigating her for filing to HR and saying she should have taken the matter directly to Ms. Whennen.
The former manager said no one followed up with her about the matter. The manicurist soon left.
The RNC chair got away with a litany of sexual assault, sexual harassment, and plain-old disgusting behavior for the most basic reason of all—he was rich. He was a star. And, as his friend Donald said, when you’re a star “You can do anything.”
[Wynn] was a member of Trump’s inauguration committee, which reportedly raised about $100 million for Trump’s inaugural celebration. And when designer Tom Ford claimed that he refused to dress Melania Trump in the past, saying “she’s not necessarily my image,” Wynn removed Tom Ford cosmetics and sunglasses from his Wynn Las Vegas hotel.
The Trump inauguration committee has been looking for a place to spend those funds they didn’t need for all the parties that didn’t happen when Trump took office. Maybe they can donate it to the victims of the RNC finance chairman.
Since the RNC was vocal in declaring that Democrats had to give back every penny donated by Weinstein, this presumably means that not only do Republican candidates need to give back any funds from Wynn, but every dollar raised under Wynn.
Right, RNC?