January 22, 2015 Oklahoma House of Representatives
January 5, 2017
Members,
Thank you for your support Tuesday and for the consideration to allow me to answer the untrue accusations against me. Although I spoke shortly about this during debate on the floor, I felt it important that I address the caucus about untrue allegations against me and a story that has been terribly mishandled. Many of you don’t know me and don’t know how I have operated as a member of the house for the past 8 years. I am not, nor have I been someone who seeks controversy. I have generally worked on specific policy measures and bills that help save lives. I do not seek the limelight or media attention and, before this, was probably one of the least known members in the House. When this story first broke, I admittedly reacted poorly. I was under a tremendous amount of public pressure, which I am not accustomed to. I also received advice, however well-intentioned, that was not in my best interest. This led me to offer my resignation. I want everyone to understand, my offer of resignation was not an admission of guilt in any way. It was my attempt to reduce any further unwarranted negative exposure to our caucus and to shut down a politically noxious news cycle which was trying to paint all republicans as insensitive to the issue of sexual harassment.
The decision to resign was hasty and made during an extremely emotional time for me. My family had just buried my 25-year-old niece who had battled cancer for the past year. It was during the holidays and my family is still grieving. I cannot express how difficult it is to read lies about yourself. The desire to just want everything to go away is very present. The media put out a story without including all the facts, the democrats perpetuated a narrative and tried to attach all of us to that narrative. The result of this political posturing is that the public has been misled. The two faults that I can attribute to myself during this entire nightmare was not communicating with all of you and not coming out to defend myself sooner. After I offered my resignation, many friends, family members and colleagues encouraged me to fight to restore my name and to clear up the misinformation and lies perpetuated against me. My dad always told me that it is always the right thing, to do the right thing. I did not want to look back 10 years from now and wish I had defended myself when I was falsely accused.
Towards the end of summer in 2015, I was made aware of a complaint against me by my former assistant. This came as a complete shock to me as I have always had good working relationships with my assistants. At that time, I was told that I said some things which made my former assistant uncomfortable and that she wanted to be transferred to another representative. I was surprised by the complaint because she had never said anything to me about the things I say, nor can I recall any time when I said anything to her that would have made her uncomfortable. However, because of this newly discovered information that she was uncomfortable working with me I also requested for her to be transferred to another representative. Our requests for her to be transferred were rejected by house staff and we continued to work together for another nearly two months.
When the news article said that I stopped communicating with her, it’s absolutely untrue. We continued professional communication as she dealt with the activities of my office but I ceased all personal communication for fear that I would say something to make her uncomfortable. She wanted to be transferred and that was my desire also if she didn’t want to work with me. It was during the interim so there was no need to communicate with her regularly. I found out that the house chose to let her go after this and I assume that was because she could not be transferred to another representative. I had nothing to do with her firing nor was I aware of it until after it happened. In fact, I offered my best wishes to her when she used me as a reference in January of 2016 for a job she was seeking with an Oklahoma City attorney.
The story that has been perpetuated is that the settlement was made on my behalf. Nothing could be further from the truth. I did nothing wrong and knew nothing of the settlement until the news broke. Had the suit been against me I would not have settled. Former Speaker Hickman has stated many times in the news, that the investigation revealed there was no sexual harassment. Former Speaker Hickman and the house attorney have also stated publicly that I was not a part of the negotiations and knew nothing about the settlement nor did I have any authority to fire her. I personally believe that the settlement should never have been made but that was the decision of the former speaker.
So, there are a lot of questions that need to be answered. And believe me, I could speculate to a lot of those answers. There’s plenty of speculation to go around. However, speculation does nothing to further the truth and only hurts those who are truly innocent. That is why the committee and the investigation that Speaker McCall announced is so important and should be respected.
I support the committee and the investigation. I look forward to the truth about all of this finally coming out. I look forward to finally being able to defend myself and clearing my name. I have nothing to hide and, in fact, have a multitude of information I would love to share through the investigation. My only hope is that it is an open, fair and transparent process so that everyone will see how terribly this was handled, how I was wrongly accused, and how badly my reputation was damaged because of an unfounded accusation and a process that never guaranteed my due process.
As conservatives, we all support the rule of law and the concept that you are innocent until proven guilty. However, I have only been tried in the court of public opinion and there is much more to this story than meets the eye. I am asking all members to reject the political maneuvering that the democrats are committing, give me an opportunity to defend myself and together, let us seek the truth.
Respectfully,
State Representative Dan Kirby
District 75