Commonwealth Media Services
Pennsylvania’s Dem. senators united in silence about Shapiro administration’s missing emails
Pennsylvania’s Democratic senators are united in their silence when it comes to new revelations that Governor Josh Shapiro’s office deleted emails for a young deputy in his administration who quit after claiming she was subjected to weeks worth of sexual harassment by one of the governor’s top aides.
The claims from the young woman were significant enough that the governor’s office spent $295,000 In taxpayer dollars to settle the matter out of court months later, and the accused, Mike Vereb, eventually resigned his post as director of legislative affairs, one of the best cabinet-level jobs in the commonwealth. Vereb is a Republican who has known Shapiro at least since the two were representatives from Montgomery County in the General Assembly from roughly 2008 to 2011. Vereb later went on to serve Shapiro in his time as attorney general.
Broad + Liberty reported last week that the Shapiro administration admitted it “no longer possessed” any emails for the deputy when this outlet requested them through a Right to Know Law request in March 2024 — about six months after the scandal first broke into public view.
An analysis of state retention records suggests many, if not most of the deputy’s emails should have been preserved for three years at a minimum, eight years in other circumstances.
Additionally, as part of the legal back-and-forth while this outlet was appealing the administration’s early denial of records to the Office of Open Records, Shapiro’s lawyers invoked the “investigation” exemption — meaning its office did not have to disclose any document that was part of an investigation, even if that investigation was noncriminal.
If the administration had launched an investigation as it appeared to claim in those documents, it would most likely have required the preservation of records for the accuser and the accused to be preserved as part of the fact finding.
Broad + Liberty sent a request for comment on the missing emails to twenty of the 21 Democratic senators earlier this week. None responded.
The request also refreshed an earlier question Democrats have declined to discuss, namely: When exactly did the governor first know about the accusations? The woman left her job in March, and began to file complaints immediately, yet Vereb didn’t resign until months later.
As Shapiro became a finalist to fill the vice presidential slot in the Kamala Harris campaign last summer, national media attention on the scandal intensified. Spokesman Manuel Bonder told the New York Times that the governor “was not aware of the complaint or investigation until months after the complaint was filed.”
Thus far, the only senate Democrat to publicly criticize Shapiro for the scandal is Sen. Lindsey Williams from Allegheny County.
“I believe victims,” Williams was quoted as saying by the Inquirer in September of 2023, when news of the allegations first broke in conjunction with Vereb’s resignation. “I am appalled by the accusations and I have a lot of questions about the retaliation she faced after speaking up.”
At a press conference in October of the same year, the first time Shapiro spoke publicly about the issue, Sen. Lisa Boscola (D – Lehigh/Northampton) gave opinions in direct opposition to Williams.
“As a female state senator, we were able to sit and meet with Governor Shapiro and his team yesterday,” she said on Oct. 5, 2023 (video, 38:44). “We came out of that very confident that he’s handling this, his administration — and he’s right: he has two powerful women that know what they’re doing when it comes to personnel issues. So I’m very confident that him and his administration is handling this as best as they can.”
The senator was referencing a meeting on Oct. 4, 2023 in which all eight of the female Democratic senators met with Shapiro behind closed doors to discuss the matter.
“The lawmakers — some of whom had questioned Shapiro’s handling of the allegations lodged against Mike Vereb, his top liaison to the General Assembly — declined to comment after the meeting. Some left the hour-long, closed-door meeting visibly frustrated, and one senator later said she still had ‘unanswered questions,’” according to the Inquirer.
It’s unclear if Boscola knew then what would ultimately be revealed to the Times the next year, that Shapiro claims to have been unaware of the problem for months.
Other Democratic politicians have been strangely silent on the issue.
Sen. Katie Muth (D – Chester/Delaware) is a sex assault survivor, and based much of her first campaign in 2018 on the still nascent #metoo campaign.
“The way she sees it, the mostly male leadership of the Pennsylvania Democratic Party is more bent on protecting its current lineup than expanding the bench—especially to include someone like Muth, who’s become a brutally frank voice amid the party’s own #MeToo reckoning,” a Slate report said.
In early 2023, Muth authored a 20-post thread to X, blasting what she called Harrisburg’s “bipartisan” #metoo problem.
“Why would survivors want to come forward when their state government enables rape culture & refuses to hold predators accountable? I know the feeling of shame that can erupt out of coming forward,” she said towards the end of her thread.
However, Muth does not appear to have made any post to X about Vereb, and numerous internet searches do not reveal any public comments on the matter.
She does not appear to have ever mentioned the governor on X since April 2023, when she praised him for raising awareness about sex assault in the military.
Republican women legislators, however, have not held back.
State Rep. Abby Major (Armstrong County) was immediately critical of the missing emails.
“The idea that there are zero emails on the server for an employee is preposterous. Even after someone’s account is removed, there are still records of emails that were sent and received in other inboxes,” Major said.
“Also, why would they delete her account and any record of her employment while in the middle of a legal case with her? It suggests to me that they were potentially interested in hiding some evidence or proof of the sexual harassment that could have been found in her email.”
Appearing on a Harrisburg television news program, Senator Kristin Phillips-Hill was equally puzzled and upset.
“Guess what? Everything can be found. Why can’t these emails be found? Again — no transparency, and no accountability” for the nearly $300,000 in taxpayer settlement, she said.
“First, @GovernorShapiro claimed he ‘didn’t know,’” Senate Pro Tem Kim Ward (R – Westmoreland) wrote on a post to X. “Now, key emails tied to his office’s sexual harassment scandal have mysteriously vanished. Coincidence? We must keep chirping until Pennsylvanians get the truth. 🐦”
Most news outlets in the commonwealth have likewise looked away from the missing-emails revelation, with the exception of Ford Turner of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, who asked the governor about it last week.
Shapiro appeared caught off guard.
“Last I checked, you wrote for the Post-Gazette, so it’s kinda strange you’d be citing some other news source,” Shapiro said. “I didn’t read the story and I’m confident my administration follows all document-retention policies. Anything else?”
“We did write many stories on the original claims,” Turner said back to Shapiro.
“Anything else?” Shapiro said back.
Todd Shepherd is Broad + Liberty’s chief investigative reporter. Send him tips at tshepherd@broadandliberty.com, or use his encrypted email at shepherdreports@protonmail.com. @shepherdreports
Coverup, “The Sound of Silence, my old friend” The culture of sexual harassment is a very long-standing practice in Pennsylvania state government. I worked for the Commonwealth for 30 plus years and I saw it on an almost daily basis, some blatant, some covert and some sub rosa. My experience showed me that if, as a woman in lower order positions, you wanted to keep your job, sexual advances and such were the price of the ticket, if you were of the plainer type, contributions to political causes were expected and required. Sexual harassment was an equal opportunity activity, females of all races were vulnerable. I was and am disgusted by this. I came to Commonwealth employment right out of Vietnam and desperately needed a job. That plus a very, very good wife kept me from exploding over the situation. I have two daughters, and I was furious over the thought they might face this in their future employment. I am so disheartened that nothing has changed, and the good old boy network is still here.
Another fake “buttery males” scandal from the media. The creep resigned. That’s a lot more than the GOP can say about their guy who bragged about grabbing womens’ private parts. But of course, the only thing that matters to the folks at B&L (Biasses and Lies) is whether the perp had the “correct” political agenda or not.
Your lying hypocrite of a governor, that “champion of women’s rights”, condoned then covered up then allowed the destruction of evidence regarding sexual harassment under his watch, Cicero.
Can’t handle that truth? Tough.
“But of course, the only thing that matters to the folks at B&L (Biasses and Lies) is whether the perp had the “correct” political agenda.”
You accusing anyone of bias based on party denominations is beyond rich.
The attempt to shift responsibility for the cover-up to B&L is the apex of hypocrisy. It does follow the usual pattern when members of the Democratic Party get caught with their hands in the underwear, so to speak, try to paint others as being so much worse, if that doesn’t fly well, then make certain you blame the victim for being a victim and for daring to seek justice. I don’t know what a “buttery males” fake scandal might mean but my shot at an interpretation is that it is just a minor social faux pas and women should expect it and get over it. If so, I think the statement is the most misogynistic twaddle I have seen on these pages.
I think ‘buttery male” refers to Hillary’s e-mails on private servers that were erased, bleached, whatever, as in “Yeah – but her e-mails…” Either that, or i was a nickname for Fast Eddie Rendell.