News/Commentary

US veteran staffer releases texts from Dem Rep with a nasty reputation after she was punished for catching Covid

December 30, 2022 | | Print Article

California Rep. Katie Porter, a Democrat, reportedly retaliated against a staffer after the staffer contracted COVID.

The staffer, U.S. Navy veteran Sasha Georgiades, had been working for her since the fall of 2020 as a Wounded Warrior Fellow, with her fellowship scheduled to end this fall.

All was well until July 9th of this year, when Porter texted Georgiades blasting her for having contracted COVID.

“Why did you not follow office protocol on testing? It’s really disappointing,” she wrote in a text message shared with Reason magazine.

(Source: Reason magazine)

According to Reason magazine, Porter’s office protocol mandates that a staffer seek out COVID testing “the instant” they feel unwell.

“Georgiades maintains an active lifestyle—she goes to the gym almost every day—and says that at first, she thought she was just sore from exercise,” Reason notes.

“At the time I felt okay, just sore as if had worked out too hard. It was hard to differentiate until the next morning and as soon as I felt sick I took a test, told the district director I had it, and stayed home,” Georgiades told the magazine.

Porter nevertheless retaliated against her by relegating her to remote work and permanently banning her from the office for the remainder of her fellowship.

(Source: Reason magazine)

Porter, who contracted COVID around the same time as Georgiades, also blamed the staffer for her own diagnosis.

“Well you gave me Covid. In 25 months, it took you not following the rules to get me sick. My children have nobody to care for them,” she texted her.

Never mind that “[a]ccording to Georgiades, Porter’s calendar said she was supposed to be in Washington, D.C., that week, anyway,” as noted by Reason.

This is relevant because her children all live in California.

Never mind also all of Georgiades’ attempts to apologize.

“Georgiades apologized profusely for potentially exposing Porter, but to no avail. She was instructed never to return to the office and completed the rest of the fellowship remotely,” according to Reason.

(Source: Reason magazine)

So to recap, in retaliation for allegedly contracting COVID from Georgiades, Porter essentially demoted her.

“Essentially I was demoted to remote and banned from the office,” Georgiades pithily said to Fox News.

However, despite rumors otherwise, she wasn’t fired.

“I was a wounded warrior fellow so the program would have to have had fire [me],” she said to Fox News.

A Porter spokesperson said the same in a statement to Fox News.

“This former employee was not fired. She was a fellow in our office, and weeks before she breached COVID protocol in July, we had already mutually agreed on an end date in August 2022,” the statement reads.

“Congresswoman Porter was informing her that she would work from home for the remaining three weeks of her fellowship. Following knowledge of COVID exposure, Congresswoman Porter tested twice daily and only attended in-person gatherings after negative results,” it continues.

That said, Georgiades maintains that this sort of stuff is commonplace in Porter’s office — which is no surprise given the Democrat lawmaker’s history of treating people like garbage:

“She has made multiple staffers cry and people are generally so anxious to even staff her because if anything goes wrong she flips out on whatever staffer is present. She just talks to staffers however she wants,” she told Fox News.

“At one point we had an office hike and she left her kids with the staffers in the back while she walked off with the chief of staff. There is no regard to us or feelings or even what we are going through. It is only about her and what she wants. I tried to pass on legislation for veterans and active duty members several times and was told no because she didn’t like who had written it,” she added.

She further accused Porter of “overburden[ing]” her staffers with so much work “it either comes to a point that they can’t juggle it all or they are fired for not keeping up.”

Indeed, this exact scenario “happened shortly after I got there with another staffer,” she said.

“He was so upset and hurt,” she said of the fired staffer.

As noted earlier, Porter has a history of treating people like trash.

Over the summer Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts filed an ethics complaint against her accusing her of “knowingly and intentionally defaming” him.

Porter even has a history of sending “controversial text messages.”

Earlier this fall, for instance, leaked text messages between her “and Irvine Mayor Farrah Khan show[ed] Porter trashing the Irvine Police Department after her boyfriend, Julian Willis, was arrested for assaulting someone during a July 2021 town hall,” according to the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC).

“Your police department is a disgrace,” she texted the mayor.

Vivek Saxena
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