St. Paul's first female mayor is seven months into office and already the subject of a formal sexual harassment investigation, after her own police chief filed a complaint accusing her of sending inappropriate text messages to city employees. The complaint includes a screenshot of an alleged message wishing a city employee a happy 'Weiner Wednesday' paired with an internet meme about sexual intercourse. This is real. This is happening.
The Complaint, The Hot Dog Emoji, and the 'Weinering' Meme
Police Chief Axel Henry, who has led the St. Paul Police Department since 2022, sent a letter through his attorney to the St. Paul City Attorney on April 1 outlining allegations against Mayor Kaohly Her. The letter, obtained by NBC affiliate KARE 11, states that Henry filed the complaint after 'becoming aware that the Mayor's conduct has extended beyond isolated incidents and has included sexual harassment of subordinate City employees, including members of the Saint Paul Police Department.'
The most specific piece of evidence attached to the complaint is a screenshot of an alleged text message from Her to an unnamed city employee that reads, 'Happy Weiner Wednesday! Wish I was having a (hot dog emoji) with you all on 6 today!' Paired with that text, according to the Minnesota Star Tribune, is an internet meme of a swaddled baby with an adult head, with a caption referencing 'weinering' — which the Star Tribune helpfully clarifies is internet slang for sexual intercourse, frequently misspelled as 'weinering.'
That is the primary documented example in the letter. Attorney Christopher Madel wrote that Her 'has used one or more mobile phones to communicate inappropriate, and, indeed, unlawful text messages,' but did not spell out additional specific incidents in the filing.
What the City Is Doing About It
The city of St. Paul has hired an outside law firm, Resolute Law, to investigate the allegations. The Star Tribune reports that Resolute Law is based in St. Cloud and describes itself on its website as a 'women-owned firm.' The firm did not respond to requests for comment on where the investigation currently stands.
Madel's letter also made a pointed demand: that the city 'immediately take all steps necessary to perform a full filesystem extraction of each of Mayor Her's mobile phones.' He wrote that future litigation is 'reasonably foreseeable.' That is lawyer for: there is more coming, and we want it preserved before it disappears.
A spokesperson for Mayor Her did not respond to NBC News for comment. The police department also declined to elaborate, with spokesperson Nikki Muehlhausen saying the chief and the department had 'no comment at this time.'
Who Is Kaohly Her
Her, 53, made history when she took office. Born in Laos, she spent part of her childhood in a refugee camp and was three years old when she arrived in the United States, according to her campaign biography. She grew up in Illinois and Wisconsin. Her election as St. Paul's first female mayor was a genuine milestone.
Seven months in, she is the subject of a formal sexual harassment investigation launched by her own police chief. That's the full arc so far.
This Is Not the First Complaint
The Star Tribune reports that Her had faced an accusation of inappropriate conduct even before taking office. A former friend filed a restraining order petition against her last year, claiming she had sent 'inappropriate or sexualized questions' and had arranged for her removal from the National Kidney Foundation Board.
That petition was denied. Ramsey County District Court Referee Elizabeth Clysdale wrote that the text messages in the record did not show Her threatening her former friend, and that Her's husband had actually tried to help resolve the conflict. Clysdale also found no proof that Her had played any role in the woman's removal from the foundation board.
So the prior case went nowhere. The current investigation is still open and active.
What Happens Next
Resolute Law is conducting the investigation, and neither the firm nor the mayor's office is saying much publicly. The demand for a full extraction of the mayor's phones signals that Henry's legal team expects the documented text to be the tip of something larger, not the whole story.
For now, the city has an outside firm doing its work, a police chief who has gone on record against his own mayor, and a mayor who has not publicly addressed any of it. St. Paul's City Hall has been in operation for considerably longer than seven months. It has not previously generated a complaint quite like this one.
The Dingo Take
You are supposed to believe that a 'Happy Weiner Wednesday' text with a meme about sexual intercourse attached to it represents some kind of ambiguous, could-go-either-way workplace communication situation. It does not. If a male mayor sent that exact message to a female city employee, we would not be having a nuanced conversation about context. We know what this is.
That said, one documented text message and a prior complaint that a judge already threw out does not yet constitute a proven pattern. The investigation exists for a reason. Resolute Law will either find more or they won't, and whatever they find should be made public in full. Her deserves the same due process everyone else does. What she does not get is a pass because she broke a barrier or because the message reads as clumsy rather than predatory. The standard has to be the same.
The genuinely uncomfortable part of this story is that it refuses to fit a clean narrative. A progressive, historic female mayor accused of sexually harassing members of her own police department by a police chief who sent the complaint through a lawyer and is demanding phone extractions. This is either a legitimate workplace harassment case being handled correctly, a politically motivated hit job, or some messy combination of both. The investigation will tell us which. Until then, the hot dog emoji is just sitting there, doing a lot of work.
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