(Headline USA) Rep. Katie Porter, D-Calif., was reportedly abusive towards her ex-husband, according to divorce records, and would scream verbal insults at him and physically throw “toys, books, and other objects” at him.
Matthew Hoffman, who filed for divorce from Porter in 2013, submitted a request for a restraining order against Porter in April of that year. He claimed Porter was prone to rage, and would “routinely” call him a “f***ing idiot” and “f***ing incompetent.” He alleged she shattered a glass coffee pot on their kitchen counter in March 2012 when she felt their house wasn’t clean enough. And in 2006, Hoffman said Porter poured a “ceramic bowl of steaming hot potatoes” on his head, “burning my scalp,” because she didn’t like the way he had prepared them for dinner.
“When she gets angry, she will claw and scratch her arms and then say to me ‘Look what you made me do!’” Hoffman also said in the records, first obtained by the Daily Mail. “She regularly says that I am a bad parent in front of the kids … Recently the children began spitting at me and throwing their food at me, calling me ‘bad daddy.’”
Hoffman also said Porter “would not let me have a cell phone because she said, ‘You’re too f***ing dumb to operate it.’”
In response to Hoffman’s allegations, Porter filed her own restraining order request against him, claiming he ordered her out of the house in April 2013 and called her a “dumb b***h,” a “despicable person,” and “f***ing evil.”
Porter also alleged Hoffman punched a bathroom light switch until it shattered and threw a newspaper at her.
In her first congressional campaign, Porter described herself as a “victim of domestic violence.”
“I don’t have a shady background,” she told HuffPost in May 2018. “I’m the most boring person in America. I’m a mom of three kids, I protected my family, I ended a marriage that was troubled.”
However, reports have since revealed that Porter is allegedly abusive toward her congressional staff. A Navy veteran who worked in Porter’s office alleged in December that Porter has ridiculed staffers and cracked racist jokes. She also accused Porter of firing her for allegedly exposing Porter to COVID-19.
