(This article first appeared in Broad + Liberty)
A document obtained by Broad + Liberty suggests that Gov. Josh Shapiro’s office may have been providing legal advice to then-Secretary of Legislative Affairs Mike Vereb while simultaneously investigating Vereb for workplace harassment claims made by one of his subordinates in March 2023.
If such advice took place, it would create an enormous conflict of interest that would severely undermine Gov. Shapiro’s (D) claims that his office had conducted an above-reproach investigation into the accusations made against Vereb that month.
The Vereb scandal is viewed as one of the primary weaknesses in Shapiro’s positioning to possibly be elevated to Vice President Kamala Harris’ soon-to-be presidential ticket.
Vereb, a Montgomery County Republican who also has a long history with Shapiro, abruptly resigned on Sept. 27 last year. The following day, Broad + Liberty broke the news that Vereb’s departure was linked to workplace harassment allegations made months before by a female deputy who worked in Vereb’s office but lasted only a month before resigning.
That woman, who is not named in this article because she is possibly the victim of harassment and sexual assault, filed a lengthy, detailed complaint with the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission. The matter was later settled out of court for $295,000.
The documents obtained by Broad + Liberty were produced as a byproduct of a Right to Know Law (RTK) request submitted in December while following up on lingering questions from the original reporting.
After the governor’s office largely denied the request, Broad + Liberty appealed the denial to the Office of Open Records. During that appeal, the governor’s office produced an exemption log for many of the documents it hoped to avoid having to turn over.
One document described by the log was an email forwarded from Christina Palmer, a senior legal analyst in the governor’s office of general counsel, to Vereb. The log described it as an “email forwarding legal advice.” The log also indicates the email had two attachments which the governor’s office wanted to withhold because they contained “attorney client or work product” as well as “internal, predecisional deliberations.”
The OOR’s Final Determination, issued June 14, 2024, allowed the governor’s office to withhold those documents and many more.
“Without knowing more, it certainly appears to be a blatant conflict of interest,” said Charlie Gerow, a longtime Republican consultant who is also an attorney. “How you can investigate somebody while simultaneously providing legal counsel to them is a huge question mark.”
Vereb, reached by text message Friday afternoon, declined to comment.
After the OOR’s Final Determination, the governor’s office only produced three pages of other documents. Broad + Liberty is appealing the matter to Commonwealth Court in the hopes of providing more details about the nature and scope of the investigation to the public.
The governor’s office invoked the appeal when approached for comment on this story.
“Because you have filed an appeal in this Right to Know Law matter, and it therefore remains in litigation, we cannot provide comment on that issue,” said Manuel Bonder, Shapiro’s spokesperson.
“Additionally, [the Office of General Counsel] represents the Office of the Governor and executive agencies, and not individual officials in their personal capacities,” Bonder added.
Other elements of the Right to Know, and the subsequent response from Shapiro’s office, raise other serious questions.
Broad + Liberty’s request asked for “Any email from any person in the office of Gov[ernor] Josh Shapiro, to Mike Vereb, from the dates of March 1, 2023, to and including May 1, 2023, that notifies Mike Vereb of an investigation into his workplace conduct.”
It also asked for any email sent or received by Mike Vereb, “from the dates of Feb[ruary] 24, 2023, to and including June 1, 2023, mentioning an investigation into Mike Vereb’s workplace conduct.”
To both of these points, the governor’s open records officer said no such records existed, which raises questions about the robustness of any investigation.
At an earlier point in the RTK appeal, the OOR bluntly asked the governor’s office “whether a noncriminal investigation was actually performed into this matter” by the governor’s office.
The office responded by generally arguing that answering that question would violate the protections afforded by the Right to Know Law when it allows documents related to noncriminal investigations to be withheld.
“If such investigation occurred, those records exist and are exempt – if no such investigation occurred, no such records exist,” the governor’s open records officer wrote, without ever providing a “yes” or “no” answer to the question.
Some in Harrisburg already suspected that this investigation was lackluster — or even nonexistent.
“It would not be any surprise to me to find out there was zero investigation done,” said Rep. Abby Major, a Republican state representative from Armstrong and Westmoreland counties in western Pennsylvania. “I have said from the beginning that if the [accusing] documents hadn’t been leaked that [the governor’s office] would have paid the settlement, had [the accuser] sign the non-disclosure agreement, and Mike Vereb would still be working in that office.”
Bonder refuted that notion.
“[A]s we have repeatedly stated, the Commonwealth maintains an independent, robust, professional process to allow people to come forward safely, as was the case in this matter,” Bonder said. “Through that process, every investigation is conducted independently from the Governor’s Office. Your assumptions to the contrary are false and unfounded.”
The open records office did determine that a few of the documents listed in the privilege index were related to a noncriminal investigation. But it should also be noted that when the governor’s office invoked the noncriminal investigation exemption to withhold a batch of documents, the OOR ruled against the governor’s office, meaning those documents had to be handed over. However, none of the documents that were turned over resembled anything that would have matched that part of the records request.
Rep. Major had been a confidant to the accuser in the months following her departure from the legislative affairs office, in no small part because Major herself claimed to have been a victim of sexual harassment while working at the Capitol.
After the Vereb scandal originally broke, Shapiro was able to avoid discussing the matter for a whole week until reporters pressed the issue at a live event in Bethlehem.
“I can’t comment on any specifics, and that’s really designed to be able to protect all parties involved in any matter,” Shapiro was quoted as saying. “I can tell you, [Vereb] no longer works for my administration.”
But Shapiro’s use of Vereb’s departure as a shield is undercut by the fact that Vereb continued in his role for at least six months after the accuser’s complaints were made known to his administration. He was fired only when the story was about to become public.
At the same press conference, Shapiro stirred even more controversy. When asked about complaints from Republican Senate President Kim Ward (Westmoreland County) and other women in the General Assembly that the Vereb matter had not been handled promptly, Shapiro responded, “First off, I’d just say ‘consider the source,’ when it comes to the president Pro Tem.”
Ward, the first female Senate Pro Tem and Senate Majority leader in Pennsylvania history, unleashed new criticisms on Shapiro after being shown the documents in this report, saying that the entire episode had shown the governor didn’t take women seriously.
“It is clear Shapiro’s hubris, ambition, and desire for power of a higher office has blinded his judgment. Shapiro boldly permitted sexual harassment matters to go unaddressed for months despite having every opportunity to meet his moral obligation to protect people,” Ward told Broad + Liberty.
“Instead, he allowed a woman and the women around her to live in fear while obscuring the truth and putting his staff in a culpable position despite having every opportunity to correct course,” Ward continued. “The truth of one’s character is how you act when no one is watching. If Shapiro allowed this toxic situation to play out publicly, it’s difficult to imagine what we don’t know. It’s appalling, infuriating, and disgusting knowing that Shapiro deemed this behavior acceptable. More disturbing is how Shapiro put his personal political ambitions ahead of doing the right thing. By doing so, Shapiro displayed a general disrespect for women.”
As Shapiro has increasingly defended his administration in the runup to Harris officially naming a running mate on Tuesday, the governor has made reference to his time as attorney general when he successfully prosecuted numerous priests within the Catholic Church.
Some of Shapiro’s critics, however, say it’s ironic that Shapiro denounced the church’s use of nondisclosure agreements to hide its abuse, but now similarly uses an NDA to divulge precious few details about the Vereb affair.
The intense spotlight that comes with a presidential campaign means both Shapiro and Vereb have faced additional scrutiny.
ABC News reported late Friday that a woman came forward accusing Vereb of invoking Shapiro’s power while threatening the woman in a 2018 incident.
Vereb “allegedly invoked Shapiro’s name on the call, telling the woman that ‘by the time he and Josh were done with me, I would be worse than nothing,’ said the woman, who requested that her name not be published,” the ABC News report said.
The report also noted that, “There is no evidence that Shapiro, who was at the time Pennsylvania’s state attorney general, was aware of Vereb’s allegedly threatening call.”
The alleged victim emailed Democratic and Republican leaders in the General Assembly in October last year in the wake of Vereb’s September resignation, the ABC report noted.
Keeping Vereb on for months was also jarring because, at that time, Harrisburg had just witnessed another sexual misconduct scandal — one in which it later was revealed the accusations had been known for years.
Broad + Liberty was first to report that State Rep. Mike Zabel was the individual referred to by an SEIU lobbyist in January of 2023. The lobbyist made her allegations in a public forum but did not name Zabel.
Zabel, a Delaware County Democrat, resigned days later, but only after Rep. Major went public with accusations that Zabel had propositioned her at a bar, and then later followed her to her car while she was alone.
Zabel announced on March 8, 2023, that he would leave his seat on March 16.
Vereb’s accuser resigned her position on March 7, 2023.
Spotlight PA later broke that “Pennsylvania House Democrats for the first time have acknowledged that the caucus knew about a sexual harassment allegation against state Rep. Mike Zabel (D., Delaware) in 2019, several years before similar claims became public[.]”
Some legislation is pending that would attempt to deal with how misconduct allegations are handled in political offices.
Vereb’s accuser told Penn Capital-Star reporter Kim Lyons about one idea she’s particularly hopeful for.
“I am most interested in ensuring third independent, unbiased parties are involved in investigations, which is being championed by Senators [Kim] Ward and [Maria] Collett, a true bipartisan effort of women,” she said.
