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Does Eric Garcetti’s former communications director’s story of the L.A. mayor covering up a culture of sexual battery inside City Hall hold water? a 🧵 lamag.com/citythinkblog/inside-mayor-slayer-naomi-seligmans-relentless-stand-against-eric-garcetti/

Eric Garcetti has been waiting to learn if he’ll be the next US ambassador to India. His appointment was held up by a GOP senator’s probe after accusations emerged that he ran a mafia-like admin that punishes whistleblowers & values deep loyalty w/ a code of silence.

His key accusor: Naomi Seligman, his former communications chief, who has led a scorched-earth campaign against her former boss (and friend), accusing his top aide of harassment and the mayor of complacency

LAMag tells the entire sordid story of accusations and betrayal in Garcetti’s City Hall while asking who exactly betrayed whom: Does Seligman’s account of sexual assault, which is denied by supposed eye-witnesses, hold water? Or is Garcetti’s code of silence that strong?

“There is enormous pressure to have loyalty in that office,” Seligman says, claiming that her former coworkers are lying in order to please their bosses. “And by ‘loyalty,’ I mean it in sort of the Godfather sense.”

“What I mean is that it’s a very vindictive administration. You either toed the line or you were out; there was no middle ground. The staff that worked with me that are still indebted to Mayor Garcetti are falling in line with the administration’s story.”

“To some City Hall staffers, the war between Naomi Seligman and Rick Jacobs over the alleged 2016 kiss was a bit like two scorpions circling each other in a bottle.”

Read the full story by @JasonMcGahan on LAMag lamag.com/citythinkblog/inside-mayor-slayer-naomi-seligmans-relentless-stand-against-eric-garcetti/