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(upbeat music) From NJ PBS Studios, this is NJ Spotlight News with Brianna Vannozzi.

- Hello, and thanks for joining us tonight.

I'm Brianna Vannozzi.

We begin with breaking news.

Lieutenant Governor Dale Caldwell has resigned in the Sherrill Administration.

The stunning move comes just hours after Governor Sherrill called for him to step down, releasing a 61-page report Thursday evening detailing the findings of an independent investigation into Caldwell, specifics that until now had been closely guarded, including substantiated findings of sexual harassment and ethics violations.

this afternoon.

Governor Governor failed to uphold of his office.

For all th now by our senior writer, reporter for NJ dot com Br Good to see you both Brent first.

It has been a whir Governor Cheryl came out front and center.

She had someone alongside her as she did.

Tell us what you heard today.

Yeah, she said that a little bit before that, Dale Caldwell, the lieutenant governor, handed in his resignation to her.

She accepted it.

She called for his resignation the night before and that she said it was time to move on and she wanted this investigation to be thorough and his conduct did not comport with her administration.

She thanked him for his service and said that she's going to pick a new lieutenant governor within 45 days, which is what the Constitution requires.

So a big day of scandal and transition in the last 24 hours of New Jersey.

Brett, what were the most serious allegations in this report?

61 pages, several months.

What were the allegations?

The two biggest ones that stood out was that he tried to get a promotion for the state employee who he was dating, that he used his power to do that, which he denies doing.

And the other one was that he was having a conversation with a female state employee and her younger friend and he was saying that, you know, ambitious women could use powerful men to help them, but you're probably looking for young sperm, which was the big sexual harassment thing that the report said it found.

Caldwell also denied saying that.

But those were the two big bombshell things.

And she said that there was a pattern of violations of ethics rules.

And then there was that one sexual harassment situation.

But again, he denies it.

And she says that she didn't accept that conduct.

Yeah.

I mean, the report really details what seems to be, as they call it, some flirtatious behavior, sexual harassment, what they call textbook sexual harassment.

Talks about appearance and executive presence in his office, meaning the way that the women look.

Colleen, what does Caldwell's attorney and Caldwell have to say about that?

You know, so it was kind of unclear until really just this afternoon when the governor announced that Caldwell had resigned.

Whether he would resign because his attorney did put out, you know, a pretty, a strong statement kind of defending Caldwell and saying that he really had not gotten quite a fair shake through this investigation.

He also had some supporters who were kind of lobbying for him and saying, you know, let us speak.

Someone who had been, she said she was involved in organizing one of the events where Caldwell allegedly brought guests that he wasn't supposed to bring.

So, you know, we had really been under the impression that Caldwell might fight this, you know, and say this, you know, this is unfair.

He did deny the allegations, right?

I mean, the attorney in the statement that we received last night, he denied the allegations.

He denied the allegation and the report by Lowenstein-Sandler called that denial not credible.

They believed the woman as we as you know, the terminology kind of came to be during the Me Too movement of a few years ago, right?

They said that there was enough evidence.

There were a number of other incidents that are referred to in the report that were not cited as being officially considered sexual harassment, but put all together, the report states that that's one of the reasons why they found the sexual harassment allegation credible.

- Brent, you talk to folks in the governor's office all the time.

She answered questions today about the vetting process and the fact that this came up both on the campaign trail and then also according to the report, it seems right out of the gate once Dale Caldwell was sworn into office, there were informal and formal warnings and trainings around behavior and standards, professional performance and the like.

What are you hearing about that in terms of her selecting him to be her number two and now having to come out and do this mea culpa to the public for him?

One thing a lot of people have been talking about is that he was a relative unknown when she picked him.

He was a Methodist pastor, a former New Brunswick school board member and the president of Centenary University.

But he wasn't a big name and that she was maybe that was playing into her wanting to buck the status quo in New Jersey.

There was also a thought that she wanted to make some inroads with the black community, that there was a thought that especially after running against Razz Baraka in the primary, that she wanted to make inroads there and that he would help that.

Now, one of the questions that you hear Republicans and other critics say is, you know, was he properly vetted?

Were they surprised when this started to come out after he took office?

And I'm sure those are questions that will continue to get asked, even though there was a half-hour news conference today.

This is not the kind of thing that just goes away.

Yeah, Colleen, every administration has to face some type of controversy, not always this early in.

But where does the administration go from here, now that she has taken this action, but needs to fill the role and win back some trust?

Yeah, I think, I mean, we certainly don't know who she's considering at this point, except that she did say she's considering somebody who has a history, which I think might mean somebody more like a legislator or or more of the traditional candidates that we, you know, we might expect to see, you know, Phil Murphy, the former governor had chosen as his first lieutenant governor, Sheila Oliver, who had been a, you know, the assembly speaker at one point.

So he, you know, he had chosen something more of a, you know, more of a traditional person, Kim Guadagno.

Any names that you're hearing being floated quickly?

Any names that you're hearing being floated?

Oh, I haven't heard anything yet, but, you know, this just happened a few minutes ago.

It's still early.

Yeah, I'm hearing that it wouldn't be surprised if it is another African-American black person from that community or a lawmaker, maybe a female lawmaker, after having these allegations about sexual harassment.

But you're going to hear names fly in the coming days.

And I asked her, is she going to use all 45 days that she has to name it?

And she said, no, they're going to they want to make sure they're doing this the correct way.

They don't take, but it does not n So whoever they pick beco governor.

Excellent point, you both.

Thanks.

Thank yo demands for Caldwell's res over the last 24 hours, in New Jersey's U. S. Senator Andy Kim, along with a lo of other federal and state lawmakers.

Caldwell's defenders and attorney though say he hasn't been given due process.

All of this is uncharted territory for New Jersey.

Where does it go from here?

We turn to Micah Rasmussen, Director of the Rebovic Institute for New Jersey Politics.

Micah, great to be able to talk to you on a day like this.

It's been a stunning turn of events.

I don't think that I can overstate that.

This is pretty unprecedented though, no?

Has there ever been a time in New Jersey history where we've had an administration face a controversy like this so early on, eight months in.

- No, and partly that's because we have not had many lieutenant governors, right?

You know, so this is the number two person in the state and we've only had that office since 2009.

We have had a death in that office, but we have not had a replacement, but we have not had a resignation.

We've not had a scandal involving that office before.

It's only ever been the governor and the Supreme Court and the legislature.

So the nature of this office and the nature of this scandal are just truly unprecedented.

It was breathtaking in its scope, the speed with which it unfolded.

You're absolutely right about that.

I think we have seen this before is there have been officials, cabinet members who have wanted to dig in, who have said, they don't care whether the governor wants them gone or not.

And they very quickly all realized that they could not sustain the governor wanting them gone.

If the governor wants them gone, then they're usually gone.

And that's what's happened in the past.

And that's what's happened here.

- Well, certainly for someone who is her number two, right?

They serve to help her agenda, to help the governor.

If the governor is asking you to go, it would seem that there is little other option.

We know we were speaking all day about whether it looked like the legislature would take impeachment action.

All of that, of course, crisis averted because of, again, Lieutenant Governor Dale Caldwell submitted his resignation this afternoon.

He's at the end of the story though.

There are lots of questions about the vetting process, about an anonymous whistleblower from Dale Caldwell's previous employer at Centenary College.

As you say, the transparency has been swift and the governor today said, "Look, we have vetted hundreds and hundreds of people."

Yeah, I think that the questions will go on in people's minds.

People will feel like they didn't get all the answers.

We're not going to have impeachment proceedings or a hearing.

We're not going to have a salacious drag through the mud and months on end.

None of that is going to happen.

She did issue the report.

She did disclose what she had asked the investigators to determine.

That is the level of transparency.

She also took action and she took action decisively and when she got the findings, as you said.

Most New Jerseyans are going to see this as there was a problem and she dealt with it.

Will questions go on in some people's minds?

Sure, but I think ultimately the overriding story here is found a problem, identified the problem and dealt with it.

Yeah, we know that she has appointed acting comptroller Shirley Ann Emilou, who most recently served as an executive assistant attorney general to serve as the acting secretary of state.

How much of a role does that person have?

We are 39 days away from the midterms, a consequential election, and how much of it really falls at the local and county level when it comes to overseeing of that department.

Yeah, we have 21 county board of elections in each of New Jersey's counties, and they are bipartisan by law.

They are equally bipartisan by law.

They're the ones who run the voting process.

They run the machines.

They run the machinery that makes the elections work.

The state's role is much more of a coordinator.

They put together the timetable by law, all the deadlines that line up.

They receive the results after the county certifies them and then they certify.

It is much more of a coordinating role.

And that's probably a good thing at a time like this because they know how to run their elections year in and year out.

And certainly the division of elections, the professionals who work there every day, they will keep on doing the job that they're doing under the interim Lieutenant Governor's leadership or the Secretary of State's leadership.

But it will be a role of coordination.

That on the main, the elections will still continue to be run at the county level.

- The Governor says she's going to be thoughtful about her next choice for Lieutenant Governor.

I do wonder if this opens up an opportunity to re-examine the role, you know, who is involved in a situation like this, given the fact that they step in to take the powers of the Governor when she leaves the state.

- I think that when you go through a crisis like this, you can't help but turn to the people that you work most closely with.

And that's not a prediction, but I just think it's natural at this moment to turn to the people you truly trust.

Not the people you thought you could trust, but the people who were working in the trenches with you day in and day out.

It wouldn't surprise me at all to see that those people that you would usually pair the Lieutenant Governor duties with anyway, a cabinet member or a close advisor, that those might be the people that she's thinking about or leaning towards first to see if anybody fits the bill within that small circle that she works most closely with.

Any potential fallout here, Micah, for the Democratic Party?

She, as we said, handled it swiftly, but of course there are calls for more transparency into what the administration knew and when.

Of course, that's always the question when a controversy like this happens.

But do you see any potential for fallout there, or has it been handled really pretty tightly, pretty gracefully?

You know, I'll say this.

There's another story today.

I don't know if you're covering it.

You probably are.

The State Health Benefits Commission met today.

34 percent.

Yes.

There you go.

Right.

And that was what the governor was leaning on that commission to do.

They resisted.

They did not want to do it.

And in the end they saw it her way even though that's not the way they wanted to see it.

And it's the same story here with the lieutenant governor resignation that he did not want to see her way and ended up seeing it her way.

So ultimately I think these moments of crisis are moments when you can solidify your leadership.

You can show everyone that you are in command.

The situation is not spiraling out of your control that you've got this.

This is a pivotal day in her administration.

Questions can linger.

That's okay.

People are allowed to ask questions.

But she had these two crises at hand and ultimately people bent to her will.

Always appreciate the insight.

Micah Rasmussen, thank you so much for making the time today.

Thank you.

As Caldwell was considering his resignation, lawmakers in Trenton were debating whether to take action on impeachment.

Republican leaders had been calling for that resignation for weeks and requesting more transparency into the handling of the controversy.

So, are they satisfied with what they heard today?

We turn to Republican State Senator Declan O'Scanlan as part of our Under the Dome series.

Senator, you have had quite a bit to say about this over the last few weeks.

What's your reaction to the events that have unfolded over the last 24 hours?

Well, look, it became evident that the lieutenant governor needed to resign.

Guilty or not, quite frankly, which is not fair, but in order to take this scandal off the table, he needed to do that so that that office can function.

He certainly needed to give up his Secretary of State duties, which he could not perform with all this pressure.

So that has now happened.

But to tell you the truth, now it becomes irrelevant.

But the rest of the story is not.

The scandals within the scandal are a problem for the administration.

They had, they potentially had the opportunity to avoid all of this during the campaign when a whistleblower approached them.

They engaged and then they blew her off.

They ghosted her, blocked her, and then doxxed her.

That's outrageous.

Now, the governor was asked about that today, and she misrepresented the facts.

She said it went to a law firm, it went to the campaign.

She then later said it went to, I guess it was transferred from the campaign to a law firm, which she said did a comprehensive or implied did a comprehensive investigation.

I know for a fact, no one talked to the whistleblower.

So it seems like it was a whitewash.

They swept it under the rug.

They cut this woman off and they fomented what has happened, this disaster.

They put other women in the campaign.

Apparently they believe in harm's way, were sexually harassed.

That all could potentially have been avoided had the campaign done a true thorough investigation.

It's much easier to remove a person who's a candidate than to go through the hell we just went through the last few months.

So that's a problem and we need answers to that and anybody who is responsible for ghosting, blocking and doxing this person should be fired immediately.

Starting with Leslie Bocal who was the person who ghosted, blocked and doxed this woman.

She was part of the campaign and then later rewarded with a job working for Dale Caldwell himself.

This is all outrageous stuff and we need to get to the bottom of it.

The other area is the out-of-state travel which apparently the administration decided was okay before the story became public but while the investigation was going on, once it leaked, suddenly she's not going to travel anymore.

Well, which was it?

Was it unacceptable when she was doing it before it broke?

Or was it a stupid overreaction once it broke?

That's a problem.

And it's a contradiction.

So these things still need to be answered.

The governor today, I mean, as you were listening, as I was, restated what she has been saying, which is that she was waiting for the investigation to be complete.

She again, harkened back to her time as a federal prosecutor and wanting that process to play out as far as regarding her travel out of state, you know, to make a determination as to whether that was good or not.

- But she chose to travel out of state after the investigation started, but before the story leaked months later, she traveled out of state 18 times during that period.

Had she wanted to be, and then after the story broke, she stopped traveling.

So some of the administration said, oh, maybe this is inappropriate.

Well, who said it was appropriate prior to this story breaking?

That's my question.

Yeah.

Are you all in the Republican caucus still considering a bipartisan, bicameral select committee investigation here?

We are encouraging that.

Yeah, I believe that should happen.

And we should look into the ghosting, blocking, adopting, the centenary person.

Someone needs to talk to her.

And then we should talk about the wise or unwise decisions about the governor's travel schedule.

So there are all kinds of things here that still need to be answered.

Plus, the lieutenant governor has himself contradicted the governor by saying it wasn't a thorough investigation, that critical people who had contravening evidence and stories to tell were never contacted.

He himself, he says, was not given an opportunity to participate in this investigation.

I've spoken to a number of attorneys who do such investigations, who've read through this thoroughly, and say it's light, it's missing key dates, and we're hearing first-hand from the Lieutenant Governor, it didn't talk to critical people.

There's a lot more work that we need to do on this.

Yeah.

In fact, his attorney, Thomas Kalkagny, said they disagree with the findings, that there wasn't a fair review of the complete record, and that certain witnesses, as you say, were not spoken to.

But what about the swift nature with which this has happened?

You have been among those who are calling for more transparency, for swift transparency.

We got the report, he's resigned the next day.

Is that not swift enough action?

Well, look, in talking to people that do these investigations, it should have been a month long in the first place.

This has been going on.

They had allegations going back to the beginning of the year.

And then the law firm was retained, I think, in May.

This shouldn't have dragged out this long.

This is a he said, she said situation.

And what you want to do in these investigations is very quickly interview everyone, because stories start to change.

People start to circle the wagons.

They, I think, were probably hoping this would just go away.

Then the story broke.

The fact that it broke through some internal communication from someone within the administration obviously thought it was inappropriate, what was going on and dragging on.

So it's really not very swift.

Here we are, we're into late September.

It started in May.

This should have been wrapped up in June, disclosed to the public, been out in front of it.

None of that happened.

This didn't get kicked into high gear until some rogue personal administration leaked that something was going on.

So no, I don't give him credit for being swift when, you know, you took many, many months to do what should have happened in a few weeks.

I imagine you all today were around Trenton and elsewhere, we're discussing what action the legislature could have taken had Caldwell not resigned.

I'm wondering if that's shifted now to how this position should be not just vetted, but also considered by the legislature.

And if that is a topic of conversation.

So look, it's you know, we've had this happen, right?

So I mean, it's really hard to say that the legislature should play a role when the lieutenant governor is someone chosen by a party, and then not officially in place until there's an election.

That happens with the top of the ticket as well.

So you really can't inflict a legislative process on that.

Now if you're replacing one after a scandal, maybe it would be a good idea to have the legislature hold some hearings and vet whoever the potential candidate that the governor is going to put up.

That is something we should look at.

I don't think we envisioned this scenario when we created the position, but I think we should discuss that.

Obviously... Yeah, certainly.

Go ahead.

No, no, finish your thought, please.

Well, look, the governor's judgment has to come into play here.

The, especially since during the campaign, we know they were approached by someone who had information that they should have considered.

The judgment to decide to not investigate that, that's a big problem and should call into question whoever in the campaign made those decisions.

And it may have gone to the governor herself in today's press conference.

- Right, we don't know if it went directly to the governor, right.

- I think someone asked, I'm gonna go back and look at the press conference, but someone asked if she was aware that the Centenary person had approached them.

And she said she was.

I believe that's what she said in the press conference.

I'll have to go back and double check that.

But I think she said that.

If that's the case, then there should have been a demand that this person be contacted directly.

We know that didn't happen.

Whatever law firm was involved, went to someone at Centenary, not the person who made the accusation, and came back and said it was an internal thing.

Well, who did you interview?

We have to leave it there.

We have to leave it there, Senator.

We have to leave it there.

Yes.

And the footnote in the report said that it was reviewed by the campaign.

The findings were found to be outside with regard to the issue.

But point made, Senator O'Scanlan, thank you, as always, for your time.

- Under the Dome is made possible in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a private corporation funded by the American people.

- That's gonna do it for us.

I'm Brianna Vannozzi.

For the entire NJ Spotlight News Team, thanks for being with us.

Stay safe this weekend.

We'll see you back here on Monday.

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