Consultant Who Recruited Platner Was Banned from Another Dem Campaign for Multiple Sexual Misconduct Complaints

Screenshot via X

Birds of a feather flock together, they say. In this case, it seems to be guys who have repeated sexual misconduct allegations against them flocking together.

As the dust settles on Graham Platner’s campaign for Maine’s U.S. Senate seat, a new report by Mike Elk, senior labor reporter and founder of Payday Report, shines an unflattering light on one of the main people responsible for getting Platner into the race in the first place.

To recap: Platner’s campaign was plagued by a staggering series of scandals, including a Nazi Totenkopf tattoo he later had covered, offensive Reddit posts, accusations he was sexting women other than his wife, and then, most disturbingly, on-the-record accusations from two of his ex-girlfriends that he had sexually assaulted them.

Platner denied the allegations, but the dam of support for his campaign broke, explosively. Democrats rushed to revoke their endorsements and the Maine Democratic Party urged him to step aside. On Wednesday, Platner posted an eleven-minute-long video insisting the accusations against him were “all false,” bitterly casting blame on the “corporate media system” and “political establishment,” before announcing he was “suspending campaign operations.” After initially looking like he might drag his feet until the last possible moment (the deadline for him to withdraw and get his name off the ballot is Monday, July 13) Platner filed his paperwork with the Maine Secretary of State Friday afternoon.

The troubling messiness of Platner’s personal life — plus the fact that the candidate marketed as a “blue collar” oyster farmer was from a very wealthy family and his mother’s high-end restaurant was his oyster farm’s only buyer — has led many Democrats to question what exactly the vetting process for this candidate was, and many are pointing fingers at the consultants, Daniel Moraff and Morris Katz.

Steve Schale, a veteran Democratic consultant in Florida who chaired Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign in the state, wrote on his Substack that soon after Platner got in the race, “it became clear there hadn’t been an ounce of serious vetting of his life.”

“Hell,” Schale continued, “the guy who recruited him, Dan Moraff, basically patted himself on the back in an interview when questioned about this vetting by suggesting that what little they did find, ‘none of this will or should stop him from being a US Senator.'”

Platner’s denials aside, what was found did, in fact, stop him from being a senator.

And according to Elk’s report, Moraff might have had reasons to be inclined to overlook accusations of sexual misconduct and assault from women.

Rep. Summer Lee (D-PA) “barred Moraff from her 2022 congressional campaign after receiving at least three complaints of sexual misconduct against Moraff,” wrote Elk, and noted that his report was “confirmed by seven well-respected activists who worked to elect Lee to Congress and supported Lee’s decision to ban Moraff from her campaign events back in 2022.”

Moraff had helped launch Lee’s political career, Elk reported, recruiting her to run and advising her successful 2018 campaign for the Pennsylvania State House, knocking out Paul Costa, “a 20-year incumbent from a historic Democratic machine, whose family held four major elected offices.”

Moraff, who is the heir to the Toys “R” Us fortune from the toy company founded by his grandfather, was working pro bono for Lee’s campaign in 2022. In other words, the complaints were viewed as so serious that a first-time congressional candidate was willing to cut ties with a free political consultant over them.

According to Elk, “Moraff was barred from Lee’s campaign following at least three complaints of sexual misconduct leveled against him, leading Lee to ban Moraff not just from his previous leadership positions in her campaign, but from even attending campaign events for Lee.”

“In the winter of 2022, consultants working for the group Justice Democrats, was assisting Lee, told activists, staff, and volunteers to stop communicating with Moraff, despite his repeated attempts to contact them to influence Lee’s campaign,” Elk added.

The complaints against Moraff ranged from him “yelling regularly” at staffers and volunteers. Elk described a campaign conference call during which Moraff “began berating a key staffer” until he was “interrupted” by Lee, “telling him that if he continued to treat her staff in that manner, he would no longer be welcome to be involved in her campaign.”

Lee’s campaign manager and Justice Democrats’ consultants had received “multiple sexual harassment complaints” over the years, wrote Elk, and ” began receiving multiple complaints that Moraff was sexually aggressive with volunteers and activists on the campaign,” with complaints coming from “at least three women, and he was dismissed.”

Elk quoted two of the women in his article, and they both tied Moraff’s past conduct with Platner’s scandals:

“Birds of a feather, flock together and Moraff and Platner were predators,” said one woman, who says she was sexually harassed while working to elect Congresswoman Lee…

One woman, who complained about his sexual misconduct while organizing in Pittsburgh, said she wasn’t surprised that Moraff would have championed someone like Platner.

“None of his current embroilment really surprises me because he doesn’t have boundaries with women, nor much of an ethical code,” said one woman.

According to a report by The Wall Street Journal, there were complaints from female staffers on Platner’s campaign about both Moraff and Katz about how they were treated:

Treatment of staff by Moraff and Katz became an increasing source of friction inside the campaign, according to several former staffers. Women on the campaign told Platner he was being managed by advisers who treated them unfairly and didn’t value their ideas, according to some of the former staffers and texts viewed by the Journal. Some directly raised their concerns with Platner, who was sympathetic but sided with his advisers, these people said.

One woman said she told Platner directly that he had a “very sexist, misogynist staff,” the Journal noted.

Tom Duerr, a former staffer on several campaigns for Pennsylvania Democrats, shared Elk’s article with a tweet concurring with the reporting.

“Having worked in Pittsburgh politics since 2016, these complaints against Mr. Moraff were well known and made him the most hated staffer in the region by the time he left – or rather was chased out,” wrote Duerr. “He should have never gotten another campaign job again after this.”

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