President Obama will hit the campaign trail this weekend in California, where he is expected to campaign for all seven Democrats running in seats previously held by Republicans, including lottery winner and philanthropist Gil Cisneros, who was accused of sexual harassment earlier this year.
The media earlier this week touted Obama's foray into the midterm elections aimed at boosting a bevy of California candidates whose campaigns party leaders have said are critical to their efforts to flip the House back to Democratic control in November.
Some of the reports said Obama is headed out to Southern California to campaign for Cisneros, who is running in the 39th district, as well as T.J. Cox in the 21st and Josh Harder in the 10th districts further north, and Katie Hill in the 25th, Mike Levin in the 49th, Katie Porter in the 45th, and Harley Rouda in the 48th.
All of the districts are currently held by Republicans though voters favored Hillary Clinton over President Trump in the 2016 presidential contest.
The reports did not question whether Obama's schedule will include stops for Cisneros, specifically, despite sexual harassment allegations leveled by a Democratic activist against him.
A Cisneros spokesman said Obama and Cisneros would appear together at an event on Saturday.
Obama's press office and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which announced the plans for the former president's trip, did not immediately respond to inquiries.
A month ago, Obama appeared cautious about aligning himself with Cisneros, a lottery winner and former Frito Lay manager running against GOP candidate Young Kim. The former president left him off a list of endorsements of 81 Democratic candidates from across the country without indicating why. Republicans speculated that the decision was related to the harassment allegations.
Democratic activist Melissa Fazli, who ran a failed primary bid for a California Assembly seat this year, in May accused Cisneros of a sexual "pay for play" in an elevator during the Democratic Party Convention in San Diego in February.
Fazli at the time tweeted out a lengthy statement detailing what she described as Cisneros's "inappropriate behavior" and said she knew there would be people who will publicly "flog me" for coming forward, but "I thought it was necessary to let people know what kind of man" Cisneros is.
In her account, she said she had an "inappropriate encounter" with Cisneros in an elevator at the San Diego Bayfront Hotel during the California Democratic Party Convention on Feb. 24, 2018.
At around 11 p.m, she said she had just left Rep. Maxine Waters's (D., Calif.) party when she ran into Cisneros in the elevator and asked him for a donation to her campaign. She said he appeared "intoxicated" and asked her jokingly "why does everyone come to me for donations" before suggesting "out of the blue" that they go back to her hotel room.
"I was shocked, but quickly excused it because he was intoxicated," she recalled. "I responded, 'I don't think so Gil, and I don't think my two roommates would approve,'" while laughing.
She said she wouldn't have given it another thought if not for a subsequent follow-up conversation when she called him a week later asking for the donation.
When Fazli explained why she did not endorse him as the preferred Democrat for his congressional race during the state convention, he asked, "well, what are you going to do for me?"
"I went into this whole spiel about my ground game hoping to impress him that I would be a very active candidate," she said. "Then he interrupted me and in a different tone and slowly said, 'No, Melissa. I mean what are you going to do for me?'"
After the previous encounter in the elevator in San Diego, she said she thought he "wanted to have sex with me in exchange for a $4,400 donation."
The Cisneros campaign has said the Fazli's statements are false.
"The interaction between Fazli was witnessed by [Cisneros campaign staffer] Thomas Rivera," the campaign said in a statement. "Rivera confirms Cisneros's account that he was neither intoxicated nor did he proposition Fazli."
"Fazli asked Cisneros for a campaign donation, to which he declined. In addition, multiple individuals interacted with Cisneros as he was headed to, and throughout the SEIU United Healthcare Workers event, all who report Cisneros being lucid and sober," the statement said.
The Congressional Leadership Fund, a super PAC closely aligned with Republican leaders, released an #MeToo-themed ad Thursday arguing that "Time's up" for Cisneros.
"Gil Cisneros thinks the rules don't apply to him," Courtney Alexander, CLF's communications director said in a statement. "Gil Cisneros has been accused of sexually harassing a fellow California Democrat, inviting himself to her hotel room and demanding sex in exchange for funds. California voters deserve better than Gil Cisneros."
According to Cisneros's website, his endorsements include: the California Democratic Party; California Democratic representatives Ted Lieu, Julia Brownley, and Alan Lowenthal, as well as former representative Loretta Sanchez; the Sierra Club; Planned Parenthood; and the Service Employees International Union of California and several other unions.
Update: The headline of this post has been updated.