MAUREEN CALLAHAN: ‘Predator’ TJ Holmes reveals what a farce the #MeToo industry really is

How does TJ Holmes get away with this?

Yet another young woman has now come forward claiming that Holmes, then her senior at ABC News, sexually assaulted her and threw her aside.

This seems to be a pattern for Holmes, who nevertheless receives soft-focus treatment from the mainstream news media and a #MeToo industrial complex that otherwise pounces on sexual predators in the workplace.

Ever since his affair with co-host Amy Robach was revealed in DailyMail.com last fall, there’s been a drop-drop-drop of women saying he took advantage of them. As is usually the case, there is another abuse of power, and another, and another.

How many other young women has Holmes sexually exploited in the workplace? My guess is more than we know.

As DailyMail.com exclusively reported last month, another female staffer, identified as Jasmin Pettaway, was 24 — 13 years younger than Holmes — when she worked at ABC News. She had hoped that Holmes would be a mentor.

Instead, it was sex in his office until Holmes got bored and threw her out.

An anonymous source, who knew Pettaway well at the time, claimed that Holmes was “a predator who took full advantage of his position.”

Speaking to The Cut, this latest woman, identified only as Sascha, says she was 27 years old and working the night shift in 2014 when Holmes started hitting on her. He was married, but his status as a rising star, coupled with his considerable charm, was hard to resist.

Holmes, Sascha said, turned out to be “the only person in the building who took me seriously.” He had a “crazy amount of interest” in her and flirted over email.

“I’m learning a lot about you,” Holmes wrote. “Maybe I like you.”

Intoxicating stuff for a junior staffer who was left exhausted by a 9pm to 5am schedule that left no room for dating or any other social life. Her job was tough, but his was glamorous, and his attention and affection were a blessing to Sascha. Their sexual relationship began in an Upper West Side hotel and went downhill from there, hook-ups mainly relegated to — where else? – his office.

Think about that: a network star who lets young female executives enter his office – door closed and locked – and then emerge red and disheveled.

The New York Post spoke to a source who reported seeing a “junior staffer” come out of Holmes’ office in 2015 looking like a “deer in the headlights.”

Sascha said she was shocked when she read that report and acknowledged that she was that young woman – that she had been observed by a colleague and seen as some sort of victim.

The message I believe Holmes sent is very clear: This newsroom is mine, I’ll take whoever I want when I want, and make minimal effort to hide it.

The idea that Holmes’s bosses had no idea what he was up to is laughable. This went on for years.

Multiple sources also told DailyMail.com that another young woman, an intern, was “stressed out” and “freaked out” by his repeated advances. And no one is lower in rank or has less power than an intern.

How could Holmes date for so long? Have network news executives learned nothing from Matt Lauer, who was fired in 2017 over sexual misconduct and abuse allegations, including rape?

To be clear, Holmes isn’t accused of anything so vile, but make no mistake: predatory acts by a superior in the workplace hurt and scar. They influence career paths. How many young women would rather bow than navigate this stuff? Or turn black? Or are they unable to do their best under such unnecessary, unspoken, tolerated stress?

Pettaway, now an award-winning casting producer and founder of the lifestyle brand, left ABC after two years to return to Cleveland, where she worked for a local affiliate. The “toxic work environment” at ABC News in New York City, she said, “really hurt my self-esteem.”

According to this report, women at ABC News feared that sleeping with their male superiors was the best and often only way to get ahead. How thoroughly demoralizing and depressing.

Whether ABC likes it or not, TJ Holmes, the one with an insufferable grin and swagger, is the face of their problem. Taking him off the air was definitely the right decision. But while he spends all his newfound free time buying Robach jewelry from David Yurman (a promise ring of all things!) Wasn’t Holmes fired outright, instead of ABC gently saying he was “moving on”?

Why didn’t ABC News forcibly denounce his behavior in a statement, distance himself from him and pledge to ensure that in the future anyone in his position who abuses female subordinates is fired without severance pay or financial settlement? The head of ABC News is a woman. Where is she? Why doesn’t Holmes’ behavior spark the kind of outrage that followed other workplace sex scandals?

Bill O’Reilly is now broadcasting from his Long Island basement. Charlie Rose lives in permanent media exile, just like Lauer.

Chris Cuomo was brought out for sexually harassing his female boss — by said female boss — in a New York Times op-ed and was eventually fired for abusing his position at CNN to potentially defame his brother’s accusers. He’s back on the air with NewsNation now – for what that’s worth. As Cuomo recently lamented in a New York Times podcast, “I will never be what I was. I was number one on the most powerful media platform in the world.”

These guys are always so shocked when they find out that the elitist media axis continues to spin even when spun from it, floating off into space like a piece of flotsam. To them and their grossly twisted egos, this really seems like a fate worse than criminal charges or civil suits.

Still: why hasn’t the #MeToo movement agitated against TJ Holmes? Has the corporate media decided that, in the absence of outside pressure and disdain, it’s just cheaper and easier to let bad guys skate?

If so, that’s bad news for women.

TJ Holmes walks around with his head held high, clearly not regretting anything. His arrogance towards young female staff members extended to his colleagues.

“No one likes working with him,” an ABC source told Page Six. “He screams and has the biggest ego.”

In a statement to The Cut, an ABC News spokesperson said: “We do not condone any form of harassment or harassment and take these matters very seriously and immediately. Creating a safe, respectful and professional work environment for everyone is and will continue to be a top priority at ABC News.”

Again, that’s hard to believe. When young women were tossed around like sexual toys, it’s inconceivable that those in high places didn’t know. It’s hard to believe that something so ingrained in company culture changes with one or two high-profile layoffs. As anyone who’s ever worked in media knows, newsrooms are the gossiest workplaces out there: reporters reporting from other reporters, underlings at a clear disadvantage.

To wit: When Holmes was promoted to “Good Morning America,” says Sascha, she found out just like anyone else. He never told her he was leaving, which made her feel like a “throwaway.” She was too young and inexperienced, she says, to realize that if he did this to her, he was doing it to others.

“I was just part of a pattern,” she says. “I wasn’t even thinking about power dynamics. I thought I was special.’

If anyone thought they were special, it was TJ Holmes. But the women he took advantage of have their own account. Here’s more to come.