Meg Whitman accused of pushing EBay employee in 2007

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Meg Whitman has been called a lot of things by her Democratic detractors. Get ready to add ‘bully’ to the list.

The New York Times reports that Whitman was accused of pushing an employee at EBay in 2007, according to two former EBay employees.

‘The employee, Young Mi Kim, was preparing Ms. Whitman for a news media interview that day. Ms. Kim, who was not injured in the incident, hired a lawyer and threatened a lawsuit, but the dispute was resolved under the supervision of a private mediator. Two of the former employees said the company paid a six-figure financial settlement to Ms. Kim, which one of them characterized as ‘around $200,000.’ ”

An agreement to keep the matter confidential was also part of the settlement, and the authorities were not involved. Ms. Whitman was counseled in the matter, the former EBay employees said, by the company’s human resources lawyers and by Henry Gomez, then president of the Skype unit at EBay and now a senior advisor to Whitman’s campaign.

The Whitman campaign issued a statement to the Times saying, ‘In any high-pressure working environment, tensions can surface. Young Mi and I had a professional disagreement, which we put behind us. She and I continued to work together at EBay, where I valued her skilled counsel and thorough professionalism.”

[Updated 5:34 p.m.: The Whitman campaign notes that Kim returned to work for EBay after the incident and commented to the New York Times that: “Yes, we had an unfortunate incident, but we resolved it in a way that speaks well for her and for EBay.’]

-- Anthony York