he says, quote, it is just frustrating that herman cain is going around bad-mouthing the two complainants and my client is blocked by a confidentiality agreement." although bennet told "the post" he couldn't remember the accused was herman cain and said it was settled quickly by fax and phone and herman cain recounted what starts like a drawn-out process. >> it started out making some huge claims for sexual harassment. i do recall that she was asking for a large sum of money. i don't remember what that sum of money was but as the review of this moved forward, that sum of money negotiate -- my attorney negotiating with her attorney got less and less and less, because her attorney figured out she didn't a valid claim. >> cain and the lawyer may have two differing accounts of reaching a settlement with this woman or talking about two different complaints. remember, when politico broke the story on the weekend, the lead is two women complained of inappropriate behavior by cain. herman cain seems to remember one complaint and one settlement and the memory took a while to develop. >> last one, guys. last question. last question. >> sir, have you? yes or no? have you ever been accused, sir, of sexual harassment, have you? have you, sir? >> that was the last question. thanks. thanks. >> have you ever been accused of sexual harassment? >> have a nice day. >> that was politico's jonathan martin on sunday. he didn't want to answer but politico said he they gave them a heads up on the story ten days before that. yesterday morning, cain denied wrongdoing or memory of a settlement. >> if the restaurant association did a settlement, i am not -- i wasn't even aware of it and i hope it wasn't for much because nothing happened. so if that was a settlement, it was handled by some of the other officers that worked for me so the answer is absolutely not. >> he said the same thing yesterday afternoon at the national press club and then a few hours after that he seemed to have changed his story. >> i was aware that an agreement was reached. the word "settlement" versus the word "agreement," you know, i'm not sure what that called it. i know that there was some sort of an agreement, but because it ended up being minimal, they didn't have to bring it to me. >> herman cain last night. his explanation which he repeated today and this evening, coming down to a question of words. an agreement which he remembered or a settlement he didn't. cain has been questioned about the politico story on sunday. most of yesterday, before he figured out that when reporters were asking him about a settlement, they were talking about what he refers to an agreement. and remember, the campaign was made aware of the politico story ten days before that. it happened a dozen years ago. it's also true that cain denies any wrongdoing and remembers only one woman and one complaint and saying i don't recall again and again about a lot of aspects of the story. >> nope, i can't recall any comment that she made, positive or negative. i don't recall by whom the charges were found baseless. i don't recall whether she left the restaurant association before they made the accusation. i don't recall, greta, i really don't. i don't remember the number. i can't recall. i don't remember her name at all. if i had a private conversation with her, i don't recall having a private conversation. with all of the conversations i had, it could have been but i don't recollect. >> that was last night on fox. again, more than a dozen years when it happened and might have happened so it's perfectly understandable if he can't recall those moments. some are pointing to the "i can't recalls" as an escape hatch. we invited cain on the program tonight. he declined. joining us john harris. thanks for being with us, john. politico followed up the original reporting with information about the national restaurant association and its decision not to endorse herman cain's candidacy. what did you learn? >> well, there was discussion within the national restaurant association where herman cain is remembered fondly and supported by many members as whether or not to give an endorsement to their former ceo. that revived a bunch of stories and a bunch of controversies that have been dormant for, as you say, anderson, a dozen years, with some people saying, wait a minute. we are not so sure we want to be out there on that particular limb. >> because of these allegations? >> a contributing factor, that's correct. and that may well have been a contributing factor of why this sprang to life. >> there's been a lot of criticism of your reporting. there was a tough article calling to question the reporting on the story, basically saying there weren't enough details in the story and ones about the settlement agreements. you have reportedly seen at least some of the documents. why not report the specifics, how much the payment amounts were for, what cain was accused of and clear up some of the speculation? >> well, anderson, as you can appreciate as somebody who's reported difficult stories and the people at propublica could understand, this is a hard subject to penetrate. it is not an easy story. every single sentence in the politico story was subject to elaborate reporting and pretty extensive editing process. and we shared what we were comfortable sharing, first on the basis of do we know it? not do we think it but do we know it? and then clearly, within the constraint of our sourcing agreements with some very difficult reporting. >> we asked your colleague, jonathan martin, on this program last night and didn't get an answer. i want the give you a chance to answer this question. was politico tipped off to the story by one of cain's rivals, as a cain rival as some including cain himself seems to be suggesting? >> and jonathan was on message last night, anderson. i'll tell you why i think it's important. this is a sensitive story. we haven't been reporting on innuendo or things we think we know and so in the public comments we have tried to stick very closely what was within the published story and edited pretty extensive and comfortable with it and i'm trying not to go beyond that. i will say the question of motive to me, anderson, is pretty secondary to the question of facts. everybody or anybody, rather, who speaks to a reporter at any time on any subject presumably has some motive for doing so. what's important is not the motive but the facts. politico's two main facts in that initial story, one, that there had been complaints. two, that those complaints had been settled or agreements reached, to use mr. cain's phrase and both those things have been validated by mr. cain himself as true and accurate. >> so you won't say one way or another whether or not another campaign rival to cain or on the other side of the political aisle directed you to these allegations? >> that's correct, anderson. i'm going to stick in every instance to what was in the actual story. >> john harris, i appreciate you being with us. i want to turn to the political and legal panel. gloria borger, david gergen, jeffrey toobin. jeffrey, a cain supporter wants to be released from the confidentiality agreement. a, can she be released? b, is it -- i mean, is it right for her to be released? if she signed an agreement saying i'm not going to talk about this and taking money for that, why now should she be released? >> well, certainly, to answer your first question, she can be released. a contract is simply an agreement between two parties. here, presumably, the national restaurant association and this woman. contracts can be changed, they can be modified, if both parties agree. so to answer the question of can she, sure. is the answer of should she? i think, frankly, the answer to that is, yes, as well. herman cain is running for president of the united states. this is a very important thing about whether he committed sexual harassment or not. if this were to go to court, and i expect it to be resolved long before it goes to court, courts generally don't like confidentiality agreements. they construe them narrowly. they think there's a public policy of disclosure rather than keeping things secret. so it's very hard to imagine a set of circumstances where her story does not come out one way or another. i don't think this agreement is going to stop her or perhaps the other woman from telling their story. >> is it typical, jeff, for all parties to be bound by the same confidentiality agreement in a case like this? if cain is bound by one, wouldn't that mean he's already violated by talking about this? >> well here, it would be very important to know who signed the agreement because it may be that the restaurant association agreement signed it. the restaurant association, some representative signed it but cain didn't sign it. we'd want to know, does the agreement bind employees and former employees like cain of the agreement. this is where things start to get -- it's really hard to know without seeing the document. but certainly, if a judge ever heard this and again i doubt it will get to that, the fact that the former president of the restaurant association is talking about these events, is characterizing them one way or another, most of the time would allow the other party her day to say, look, this is my view of what happened. the agreement be damned. >> gloria, if this woman goes public, is this another issue, another ball game? >> it is a whole new ball game. once, you put a human face on any kind of charge like this, harassment, people are going to be able to judge her, look at her, look at her credibility and see if they believe that she's telling the truth. it does become a he said/s said, but she's going to provide a whole set of details she has and people will have to judge those details, but it's clear to me from the interview with her attorney in "the post" that she has a recollection of events that she wants to tell, that she believes she was harassed and that she believes her payment in money was not for severance but it was as a settlement for her sexual harassment claims. >> david, how does this strike you? i mean, if this person, this woman or two women signed a contract a dozen years ago, is it fair to now have these allegations come forward and not have them come forward? >> anderson, it strikes me that this story will continue, it has legs and this controversy is going to deepen. and it could well almost knock him out of the race, unless he now comes forward and gets the facts himself. in fact, calls for the settlement to be made public. i don't think necessarily the woman comes forward but i think there's going to be an intense journalistic interest what's going in this settlement. what's the background to the settlement? the bumbling way he's handled this, the shifting story increased the pressure on him to get this resolved this week in the next couple of days. not let this linger. there are those, of course, who on the right, who believe this is all a media smear, that the liberal press can't stand to have a conservative black doing so well. and they want to bring him down. i don't think that's the case, but know that that's an important element to this story, as well. >> do you think there is anything to that, whether it's liberal media or whether it's people who are out to knock herman cain out of the race spreading this story? i mean, is this a fair thing because it's a hard allegation to fight against when it's being made by unnamed people and there's no details out there? >> anderson, so much depends upon the news organizations involved near. politico is fairly new but made up of journalistic pros. they're good people that rapidly established a very, very successful organization. they have a significant following because people think they're fair and thorough. my impression of their reporting on this was that they went to great lengths to try to pin this down before they went public. after all, as you say, they did give the cain campaign ten days to prepare for this. and astonishing thing is cain wasn't better prepared when the story went public after the ten days with a very complete answer to put it to rest completely. he could have put it to rest. >> gloria, i'm sorry, i have to jump in. we just got a phone call from joel bennet, the attorney for one of cain's accusers. i want to bring him into the conversation. thank you for being with us. have you approached the restaurant association about the possibility of getting this confidentiality agreement overturned? mr. bennet, are you there? >> yes, i'm here. i'm sorry. go ahead. >> thank you for joining us. have you approached the restaurant association or been asked by your client or former client to approach the restaurant association about getting confidentiality agreement overturned? >> not yet because i had closed my file and had disposed of the agreement. i'm getting it from my client. i hope to get it today or tomorrow. once i do that with my client's consent, i will do that. >> has your client asked you in fact, at this point to do that? >> she's still mulling over what she wants to do about this. she's naturally concerned about all of the publicity that's coming up 12 years after the fact. >> jeff, if you want to ask a question -- >> can i ask a question of mr. bennet? mr. bennet, is herman cain a signatory? did he sign this agreement or just the restaurant association sign it? >> i haven't seen it in 12 years, but i do not have a recollection of mr. cain signing it. >> so this was something handled by the restaurant association. >> do you believe he is bound by it? is he bound by it? or is he simply a spectator with nothing to do with it? >> he was the ceo at the time and certainly would have been bound by it while he was the ceo of the national restaurant association. i'll have to see the agreement to see what impact it has on employees after they leave the restaurant association. >> can i ask something, anderson? >> go ahead, david. >> mr. bennett, this is david gergen. "the washington post" and "the new york times," they say they that she wants an opportunity to have her side told and you just said she's still mulling and not sure what she is mulling. >> naturally, she's been very upset about this since the story broke last sunday because mr. cain has been giving the impression she came out and made false allegations. that's certainly not true and she's still deciding, once we hear from the restaurant association, what she'll do if they'll waive the confidentiality. until they do that, she's not going to speak out. >> was she released? did she leave the national restaurant association because she made the allegations? was the separation based on this or did they accuse her or say she was not a good employee for other grounds? what was the basis on which she left? >> to the best of my recollection, there were no complaints about her performance. she was ready to move on to another position in light of the way she had been treated by mr. cain, with the confidentiality settlement agreement. >> mr. bennett, it's gloria borger here. you've spoken with your client. does she believe mr. cain is not telling the truth? >> yes. >> can you elaborate? >> how so? >> first of all -- because there were two women who filed complaints at this time and it's unclear which one he is speaking about all the time, but to the extent he's made statements that he never sexual harassed anyone and there was no validity to these complaints, that's certainly not true with respect to my client's complaints. >> did you -- i'm sorry. did you represent both women? >> i only represented one woman. >> and -- >> not both. >> mr. bennett -- go ahead, jeff. go ahead, jeff. >> does she have any corroborating evidence? does she have e-mails, photographs, notes, anything other than her word about what mr. cain did to her or she accused him of doing? >> i have no recollection 12 years later of what the proof was. in these situations, usually it's a one on one situation. but i'm not certain what the circumstances were at this time without going back and talking to my client again. >> mr. bennett, have you been hearing some of the things that herman cain has been saying? i know your recollection is perhaps not as sharp as you would like it to be based on being 12 years, but based on what you have heard mr. cain saying, is it your understanding and your belief that he is also not telling the truth? >> my -- what i have heard him say on the media is he never sexually harassed anyone and there was no validity to these claims. and my client made a good faith, honest complaint of sexual harassment. >> could you give us any details about what the nature of that sexual harassment was? >> i'd be happy to if the national restaurant association waives the confidentiality provision of the settlement agreement, but i have not -- >> you are persuaded that it was -- >> they have refused to speak to the media and they say it's a personnel matter. >> you are persuaded it was sexual harassment? >> i am persuaded my client made a good faith, honest complaint of sexual complaint. i was not there. i didn't see what happened between these two people, but i know her very well and i'm sure she would not make a false complaint. >> do you recall, you know, mr. cain says that he was told by the general counsel, the people doing the investigation, while he recused himself, he was told in the end that they believed there was absolutely no basis for the claim and that essentially -- was that your understanding of the result of their investigation? >> to the best of my recollection, i was never told about any investigation at that time, but i would say an investigation done by people under herman cain's supervision whose livelihood depended on him would not be the appropriate, independent, outside objective people to do such an investigation. i have been hired to do investigations of sexual harassment by companies or nonprofit organizations. and if you're serious about doing such an investigation, you don't have it done by employees under the thumb of the alleged harasser. >> do you recall how involved herman cain was in the settlement process, in the discussions of this? >> to the best of my recollection, i never had any contact with herman cain. >> also, is your client the woman that herman cain was referencing when he was telling a story about comparing the height of the person to the height of his wife? >> i haven't seen my client in some years, but the best of my recollection is she's taller than five feet tall. >> was it your understanding that pain was severance? was a severance payment or a settlement payment? >> it was a settlement agreement of a sexual harassment complaint with a confidentiality provision and a nondisparagement provition. >> from your point of view, the settlement -- just finish. in other words, the settlement agreement was in effect compensation from the national restaurant association for -- with a sense that somehow she had been wronged and they were paying her and also asking -- >> a settlement agreement is never an admission of wrongdoing. >> right. but it is -- what is it then? >> it's an agreement with no admission of wrongdoing. >> jeff toobin? >> yeah, mr. bennett, has your client ever made other sexual harassment allegations against other employers? >> not to my knowledge. >> so did your client contact you because she'd been watching mr. cain and he got her upset? >> i believe she contacted me when the politico story first broke. >> so she -- so you're saying she wasn't contacted directly by politico? she -- >> i honestly don't know how that happened. my understanding is a present or former board member of the national restaurant association leaked the story to politico. >> a member of -- >> i'm sorry. you said -- you said that's your understanding. how do you have that understand