Windy Boy resumes House campaign, calls sexual abuse allegations ‘political attacks’

Montana State Sen. Jonathan Windy Boy announced on Wednesday he is unsuspending his campaign for the U.S. House and said recently publicized allegations of sexual abuse against him are “character assasination.”

Last month, Montana Democratic Party Chairperson Shannon O’Brien announced she had learned of serious sexual abuse allegations against Windy Boy. Legislative leaders called on the Democrat from Box Elder to resign his position in the Legislature. 

At the time, Windy Boy said he was putting his Congressional campaign “on suspension” citing health reasons and grief over the deaths of family members.

But in his first public statements about the allegations since they were published three weeks ago, Windy Boy made no mention of his health or grief and brushed the claims off as political maneuvering, going after one of his Democratic primary opponents. 

“This is a political ambush,” Windy Boy said in a press release. “This is an old smear campaign that has turned into a political hit. These allegations are being repackaged and pushed publicly for political purposes.”

Windy Boy said he is being “politically prosecuted” by the Democratic leadership, and said Helena attorney Brian Miller, who is also running for Congress as a Democrat against him in the primary election, is “vexatiously smearing” his name. 

Miller previously told the Daily Montanan he had learned of the allegations and had been speaking to the alleged victim in his capacity as a lawyer for several weeks before they became public, but had worked to maintain some distance from the issue by contacting additional lawyers to alleviate concerns about it being politically motivated. 

Once Windy Boy initially suspended his campaign, Miller began officially representing the victim and her mother, Brenda Russell, who had been posting to social media earlier this year allegations that Windy Boy had propositioned her underage daughter and sent explicit photos more than two decades ago. 

In his statement, Windy Boy said that Miller has a public disciplinary record as an attorney, which should be “considered when evaluating the credibility” of the campaign against him. 

“This is about the public record and about accountability,” Windy Boy said. “My enemies are making a lot of noise, but just as before, there have been no charges, no adjudication. This is all dirty politics, based upon rumors and slanderous allegations to influence election outcomes just weeks before voting begins.”

Windy Boy has previously been the subject of harassment complaints, according to the AP, and an investigation report released by the Legislative Services Division substantiated the claims that Windy Boy had sent a female lawmaker harassing text messages in 2017. He said then that he believed his Constitutional rights had been violated during the investigative process, a claim he repeated in his statement on Wednesday. 

The disciplinary action against Miller that Windy Boy referenced involves a federal judge who found Miller had filed a “retaliatory motion” in a lawsuit and sanctioned him for “bad faith and vexatious conduct.” Subsequently, the Montana Supreme Court’s Commission on Practice publicly admonished Miller for making arguments about a judge’s qualification and integrity “with reckless disregard as to their truth or falsity.”

In a response to the Daily Montanan, Miller said that in 2014 he had accused a judge of helping out an attorney on the other side of a case and altering deposition testimony, statements he said “cross the line and constituted judicial harassment.”

While the disciplinary board admonished him, his law license was “never suspended for one single second,” and he said he hasn’t had an issue with any other judge since, or with the same judge on other cases. 

“Although it was not the best move in the world, I learned a lot from it and it made me a much better lawyer at the end of the day,” Miller said. “And I’m grateful for the disciplinary process and for the professionalism of the Office of Disciplinary Counsel in how they handled it.”

Miller said that “Windy Boy is a liar,” and said he has evidence from his client that includes graphic texts and photos about the allegations. 

“I’m not surprised that a guy like Windy Boy would do something like this at all,” Miller said. “His thinking is distorted. Only a twisted person would do the kinds of things that he’s done.”

Windy Boy did not respond to calls or emails about his decision to restart his campaign, his health issues, or whether he will resign from the Legislature. 

In his statement, the lawmaker “suggested” the Montana Legislature “cease and desist any and all formal actions against him.”

On Monday, the Legislature’s Committee on Committees voted unanimously to remove Windy Boy from his interim committee assignments, at the request of Senate President Matt Regier, R-Kalispell, and Minority Leader Pat Flowers, D-Bozeman. 

A spokesperson for Senate Democrats said that they stand by their actions. 

“We believe the decision to remove him from his committee assignments in the interim was appropriate,” the spokesperson told the Daily Montanan. “Based on the evidence that we’ve seen, we continue to believe the best thing for Sen. Windy Boy and his constituents is for him to resign.”