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Mike Groll/Associated Press
Harold Ford Jr., a former congressman turned Wall Street rainmaker, was fired by the financial services firm Morgan Stanley in recent days “for conduct inconsistent with our values and in violation of our policies,” the company said in a statement on Thursday.
Morgan Stanley declined to say specifically what prompted the firing. But it came after a woman who did not work at the firm accused Mr. Ford of acting inappropriately in a professional setting, according to a person briefed on the details of the allegations. The firing was earlier reported by HuffPost.
With the firing, Mr. Ford became the latest prominent man to lose his job amid heightened scrutiny of workplace behavior.
In a statement provided by his lawyer, Mr. Ford denied the claims and threatened to sue the bank and his accuser, whom he identified as a reporter, for damaging his reputation.
2. In a statement, Harold Ford Jr firmly denies the allegations and says he is going to sue the woman who accused him and Morgan Stanley for wrongful termination. https://t.co/OsM9QspFxm pic.twitter.com/oNa51hDMAI
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Yashar Ali (@yashar)
Dec. 7, 2017
“This simply did not happen,” Mr. Ford wrote. “I have never forcibly grabbed any woman or man in my life.” He added that socializing with members of the press was part of his job, and said that “false claims like this undermine the real silence breakers.”
Mr. Ford served five terms in Congress as a Democrat representing a Tennessee district after first being elected in 1996. He joined Morgan Stanley as a managing director and senior client-relationship manager in 2011 after a stint as a vice chairman and senior policy adviser at Bank of America.
Mr. Ford appears regularly on the MSNBC show “Morning Joe.”
“We are looking into the report about Harold Ford Jr.,” a spokeswoman for MSNBC said. “During that time he won’t be a guest on MSNBC.”
