Dem Rep Kept Aide for Three Months After Learning He’d Threatened a Woman

Rep. Elizabeth Esty (D-CT) reportedly kept her chief of staff employed in her office for three months after she learned that he had allegedly threatened a former Esty staffer whom he had dated. The former chief of staff, Tony Baker, said in a voicemail message to Anna Kain in May 2016: “You better f*cking reply to me or I wil f*cking kill you.” According to The Washington Post, Esty “consulted her personal attorneys and advisers” and spoke with Kain, then asked her former chief of staff to “look into Baker’s past behavior.” Three months later, Baker and Esty reportedly co-wrote a “positive recommendation letter” before Baker left Capitol Hill, and Esty signed a contract “preventing her from disparaging him or discussing why he left.” Baker then got a job at Sandy Hook Promise, a gun-control group, but was fired this week.