The Galveston County Daily News

The National Organization for Women said Friday that, if U.S. District Judge Samuel Kent is guilty of sexual harassment, he should be impeached.

The group called on the House Judiciary Committee to review the findings of a judicial council investigation of Kent. If those findings show he violated federal civil rights law, impeachment proceedings should commence, the half-million-member advocacy group said.

In an earlier interview, Kim Gandy, the president of the organization, said she thought it seemed clear from a disciplinary order issued by Kent’s fellow judges that they considered him guilty of sexual harassment.

Kent has been suspended through the end of the year from hearing cases in Galveston’s federal court.

Late last month, days after The Daily News reported that a court employee had complained of sexual harassment, the Judicial Council of the 5th Judicial Circuit issued an order reprimanding Kent. The order mentioned the sexual harassment allegation and other complaints, but it gave no details and it didn’t say whether it determined if the complaints were credible.

The employee, Cathy McBroom, complained of unwanted physical contact, her attorney, Rusty Hardin, has said.

Officials with the 5th Circuit, which includes Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi, said federal law bars them from commenting on the Kent investigation beyond what’s in the order.

In a statement Friday, the National Organization of Women said it found the vagueness of the order and the secrecy surrounding the Kent probe exasperating.

“There’s an Alice-in-Wonderland feel to this process,” the statement quotes Gandy, herself a 5th Circuit lawyer, as saying. “The 5th Circuit’s investigation of its own judge was completely secret, none of the findings were revealed to the public, not even after the investigation was complete, the ‘public’ reprimand contained no details and all documents uncovered in the investigation are now sealed.

“To make matters worse, the 5th Circuit says that even if a judicial panel finds that a judge did commit a crime, it is not obligated to refer it to law enforcement. Federal judges are protected by the law from the law.”

According to 5th Circuit rules, the judicial council may release the results of its investigation of Kent to the judiciary committee.

The chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, U.S. Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., has not said anything about the Kent affair. But the ranking Republican on the committee, Lamar Smith of Texas, on Thursday said the matter should be investigated. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., another member of the committee, and the conservative group Judicial Watch had already called for a probe, according to news accounts.