WASHINGTON (AP) — Businessman Herman Cain is denying he sexually harrassed former employees and battling accusations of financial misconduct in his campaign as he navigates his way at the front of the pack in the race for the Republican presidential nomination.
Cain, who is best known for his management of a pizza restaurant chain, stunned the political establishment with his rise from national obscurity to the top of the polls. Scrutiny followed.
On Monday, the candidate declared he had been falsely accused of sexual harrassment in the 1990s while he was head of the National Restaurant Association. He said the allegations that are surfacing now are part of a "witch hunt."
Cain was responding to a report on the website Politico that said the trade group gave financial settlements to at least two female employees who had accused him of inappropriate sexual behavior.
The report was based on anonymous sources and, in one case, what the publication said was a review of documentation that described the allegations and the resolution. Politico said Cain refused to comment when asked specifically about one of the woman's claims.
Meanwhile the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel newspaper reported that Cain allowed a tax-exempt charity to illegally provide money to help his presidential campaign get started. Cain's chief of staff, Mark Block, says the campaign has asked a lawyer to review the transactions.
The new allegations could hurt Cain's efforts to reassure the Republican establishment that someone with so little political experience — and who hasn't been fully vetted on a national stage — is prepared to go up against President Barack Obama next fall.
Cain has recently been at or near the top of national surveys and polls in early presidential nominating states, competitive with former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, long considered the Republican to beat. Cain has been pointing to his long record in business to argue that he has the credentials to be president during a time of economic hardship.
Romney is viewed warily by the party's hard-core conservative base because he has shifted positions on issues such as abortion and gay rights from the time he was governor of Democratic-leaning Massachusetts. He also implemented a health care reform plan in Massachusetts that served as a model for Obama's health plan that Republicans loathe.
But so far the party's conservative wing has yet to coalesce around an alternative to Romney, splitting their support among Cain, Texas Gov. Rick Perry, Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann and several others.
Crisis management is one of the starkest tests of viability for any U.S. presidential candidate. Cain, a relative newcomer to national politics, had trouble passing the test Monday during a whirlwind of speeches and interviews in the shadow of the sexual harassment allegations.
Throughout Monday, he offered conflicting responses as to whether he remembered the specifics of the harassment allegations or the existence of settlements with the women. That raised new questions about the candidate who now is at or near the top in many polls on the Republican race.
At an appearance at the National Press Club in Washington Monday afternoon, Cain said he did not know if the trade association provided any settlements, and he declined to address specifics of the accusations or any resolution.
But in an interview later with Fox News, Cain said he did know about it. "Yes, there was some sort of settlement or termination," he said.
During his appearance at the press club, he declared: "There's nothing else there to dig up. ... We have no idea the source of this witch hunt, which is really what it is."
After taking questions, he burst into a song: the Christian hymn "He Looked Beyond My Fault."
In an interview with The Associated Press immediately afterward, Cain first said he had some memory of specific allegations — and then said he was not aware of any.
"Some of them," he responded initially. When pressed, he said: "That was 12 years ago. So no, I don't remember."
Still later, in an interview with the "PBS NewsHour," he said he remembered that "once I referenced this lady's height and I was standing near her" and that the woman "thought that that was too close for comfort."
The trade association declined to comment on the allegations.
"The incidents in question relate to personnel matters that allegedly took place nearly fifteen years ago. Consistent with our longstanding policy, we don't comment on personnel issues relating to current or former employees," National Restaurant Association spokeswoman Sue Hensley said in a statement.
So far, Cain has seemed to weather a series of stumbles; the former radio talk show host had to clarify recent statements on abortion, the treatment of terrorism suspects and the placing of an electrified fence along the U.S.-Mexico border. He's also shrugged off questions that have started to surface about his management style.
But there were signs that conservatives were rallying behind him, attacking the report as inaccurate and perhaps racially motivated.
The head of the conservative Media Research Center, Brent Bozell, called the Politico story a "High-tech lynching of Herman Cain." That was a reference to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas' response to a former worker's allegations of sexual harassment during his U.S. Senate confirmation hearing.
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Associated Press writers Kasie Hunt and Laurie Kellman contributed to this story
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