The Mike Bloomberg NDA scandal just took a major turn

During this week’s Democratic 2020 primary debate, Elizabeth Warren hammered Mike Bloomberg over the nondisclosure agreements that he’s reportedly signed over the years with an unknown number of women who have accused him of unknown inappropriate behavior. Now things have taken a major turn.

Mike Bloomberg just tweeted this: “Bloomberg LP has identified 3 NDAs signed over the past 30+ years with women to address complaints about comments they said I had made. If any of them want to be released from their NDAs, they should contact the company and they’ll be given a release.”

This provides some answers, but it also raises a number of questions. Bloomberg clearly believes that his remarks toward these three women weren’t particularly egregious, and if they do go public with their complaints, then the public will conclude that this isn’t a major scandal. But is he right about this? Also, are there really just three women?

There is also the more fundamental question of whether any of these three women actually want to come forward. Women who go public with this kind of thing tend to end up being harassed in often brutal fashion. Mike Bloomberg is running for president, so he should have no privacy in a matter like this, but the women involved have an absolute right to their privacy if they want it.

Then there is the question of why Mike Bloomberg didn’t simply post a tweet like this immediately after the media first broke the story. In such case, Warren couldn’t have hit him over the head with it during the debate. But really, Bloomberg’s fate on this matter is likely to come down to whether there really are complaints from just three women, or if he’s cherry picking the specific complaints that he thinks are the least egregious.