Allegations About Democrat Katie Porter’s Abusive Marriage Resurface

Vulgarities, hot potatoes, and shattered dishes: this is the back story of a rising California Democrat and how reports of anger issues created collateral damage that has shrouded her political career. 

Now Rep. Katie Porter wants to run for higher office, but can she convince the voters and donors that she’s the best candidate for the decisive role?

As she runs for Dianne Feinstein’s coveted seat, Porter must prove that she’s the West Coast version of Massachusetts’ Sen. Elizabeth Warren – a fiery progressive champion versus the ill-tempered politician she is according to former staffers, politicians and her ex-husband. 

California Democrats will have to choose between Porter, a third-term congresswoman, and longtime liberal heavyweights like Reps. Adam Schiff and Barbara Lee in the Senate primary.

Porter’s divorce almost became a matter for her House campaign to deal with in 2018, but it didn’t – the California Democrat told the story of the domestic abuse she said she suffered to the Huffington Post. 

She’s now on the media circuit with a memoir out Tuesday that dives deeper into her account of the relationship and shows off her ‘no bulls*** style’ of politics — I Swear: Politics is Messier Than My Minivan. 

But after reports claimed she used abusive language toward staff, her divorce documents have resurfaced to DailyMail.com.

They tell the story of a messy and dramatic ending to the congresswoman’s marriage that left her one of Capitol Hill’s rare single moms raising school-age children.

On March 20, 2013, Porter and then-husband Matthew Hoffman filed for divorce but decided they would continue to live in the same home for the sake of their three children.

But from there, the relationship deteriorated – with Porter and Hoffman filing restraining orders against each other and alleging abuse. Old incidents came to light in divorce filings, with Hoffman alleging Porter dumped a bowl of steaming hot boiled potatoes on his head.

From 2009 on, Porter was the sole breadwinner, and Hoffman stayed home with the kids. Hoffman insisted that Porter was prone to ‘extreme anger’ and had a ‘history of snapping and screaming at [him] and the children,’ and would ‘claw and scratch her arms’ while blaming him for the markings.

Hoffman said Porter frequently said things like ‘you f***ing idiot!’ and ‘you’re f***ing incompetent.’ ‘She would not let me have a cell phone because she said, ‘you’re too f***ing dumb to operate it,” Hoffman said.

No confirmed photos of Porter’s ex-husband are in circulation.  

Porter said in divorce documents that their marriage had been ‘troubled’ for four years leading to divorce, but her husband had ‘not acted violently’ other than one incident years earlier where Hoffman punched a wall until she began the process of leaving him. In a filing, Porter said she and Hoffman had attended anger management classes together in 2009.

But in another instance, Hoffman said that in 2012 Porter came home from work one day enraged that the house was not clean and slammed a glass coffee pot on the counter, causing glass shards to spray everywhere and cut him. 

‘This house is a mess! You f***ing slob! You’re incompetent! What the f*** do you do all day!’ Porter allegedly said while the three kids were nearby in the living room. Hoffman said Porter began picking up dishes and saying, ‘Look how f***ing dirty this is.’

In the Spring of 2006, Hoffman said Porter came into the kitchen as he was making mashed potatoes for dinner. As their oldest child Luke sat in the highchair, Porter looked at the potatoes in a ceramic bowl and yelled ‘Can’t you read the f***ing instructions!’

‘She then took the ceramic bowl of steaming hot potatoes and dumped it on my head, burning my scalp,’ Hoffman said.

When the Iowa-born law school professor-turned-outspoken progressive first ran for her seat, she said the divorce and restraining order became a ‘whisper campaign’ among her primary opponents — with a rival campaign reportedly telling people something in her divorce documents would disqualify her from running.

So instead of waiting for her dirty laundry to be aired by opponents, Porter went to the media herself.

‘To be made to feel like I’ve done anything wrong ― I’m just outraged,’ Porter told the Huffington Post. ‘I have a wonderful track record. I’ve worked really hard to fight for consumers. That’s what I should be campaigning on. But I’m not going to let anyone say that because a woman’s been a victim of domestic violence because she stood up for her children’s safety, she’s disqualified. Who will run then?’

Since assuming office Porter’s profile has risen, whether over her tough line of questioning of Trump officials during committee hearings or a fight with Irvine Mayor Farrah Khan in which she told Khan her police force was a ‘disgrace’ and added a threat: ‘You can lecture me on professionalism. And see what happens.’

Porter blasted the department for arresting a man she lived with after he allegedly assaulted a pro-Trump protester in July 2021.

Julian Willis spent only ‘brief’ time in custody for allegedly giving a pro-Trump protester a bloody nose, but Porter texted the mayor: ‘I will never trust them again’ and ‘your police force is a disgrace,’ reported Fox News.

In 2019 Porter made waves by wearing a ‘Batgirl’ costume to the House floor to vote for Donald Trump’s first impeachment inquiry, and in 2023 she was pictured reading ‘The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F***’ during the heated speaker’s vote.

Last year text messages came to light where an angry Porter told a staffer, Wounded Warrior fellow Sasha Georgiades ‘You gave me Covid’ and told her not to return to the office.

As a boss, Georgiades, who spent two years with Porter’s office, told DailyMail.com she felt Porter was ‘very dismissive’ and ‘short-tempered.’

‘It didn’t really take much to make her upset,’ Georgiades said, recounting a time when she wrote a brief for a call Porter was about to place to congratulate a student on being accepted to a service academy.

‘I forgot to change ‘she’ to ‘he’ on a brief,’ she said, ‘I just forgot to change one part … I got in trouble for that because I would have ruined her phone call to this kid. It’s like, why are you yelling at me?’

After Georgiades’ claims, anonymous ex-staffers came forward on the Dear White Staffers Instagram account to say they’d heard Porter say ‘rude/racist things’ while trying to ‘mask it as edgy humor’ and badmouthing Democrat leadership. 

‘Thinks she knows better and talks s— about other members, leadership, staffers, local [elected officials], etc., at full volume, in public, and to literally [anyone] who will listen,’ the post reads. 

And according to Hoffman’s restraining order request, in November 2011, Porter decided she would have a C-Section to deliver their oldest daughter Elizabeth, named after Porter’s law school mentor Warren.

Hoffman alleged their middle son Paul, two and a half years old, was ‘very excited to have a baby sister’ and was talking to Porter about it.

Hoffman said Porter stood over Paul and screamed, ‘Get out of my face and leave me alone!’

Hoffman said he rushed in, and Porter struck him in the face and said, ‘Why can’t you keep them away from me?’

Porter called the allegation ‘absolutely false.’

And on Thanksgiving 2011, Hoffman said Porter came in as he made Jell-O with the kids and said, ‘Are you so f***ing stupid you can’t make jello? How f***ing dumb are you!’ He said she kept telling him he was useless.

One fateful day about a month after the couple filed – April 24, 2013, the couple got into a fight that led to Hoffman’s arrest.

The pair had agreed to a schedule where when it was Hoffman’s morning with the kids, Porter would not be there. On April 24, Hoffman alleged Porter refused to leave the house and slowly moved around, ‘taunting and laughing at me.’ Porter insisted she was simply getting ready for work.

Hoffman said Porter began brushing her teeth ‘very slowly,’ and he punched a light switch out of frustration. Porter claimed Hoffman squeezed her hands, ripped the floss out of her hand, demanded she leave the house and yelled that she was ‘ruining our children’ called her a ‘dumb b***h,’ ‘despicable person,’ ‘f***ing evil’ and ‘should rot in hell.’

Hoffman, who admitted to grabbing her hands to take her toothbrush away, claimed that Porter was the one who ran at him and punched him, causing a bruise on his arm.

Porter said that the evening before, Hoffman had thrown the DVD case for ‘Californication Season 4’ across the room and said, ‘This is pornography. Only a terrible person would watch this.’

Porter said Hoffman used his elbow to shove her, shoved the dining room table, and threw a newspaper at her.

Porter went to work and did not call the police until nearly 11 hours later, during which time the kids were under the care of Hoffman. ‘During the day, I had time to process what happened that morning and more frequently since I filed for divorce,’ she said.

She said Hoffman urged her not to call the police – the police had been involved in an altercation of theirs only a month earlier. She said Hoffman told her: ‘If I did, our children would go to foster care’ and asked if she wanted him to kill himself. ‘Is that what you are trying to make happen here?’ he allegedly said, according to the restraining order request.

According to a police report, when cops came to talk to Hoffman, their seven-year-old Luke told them Hoffman had hit Porter in the past and had kicked him but did not go into detail.

Porter filed for – and won – a temporary emergency protective order against her husband. Hoffman, in turn, filed his own domestic violence restraining order. Both claimed the other had filed one in retaliation to better their standing with the law.

In 2014, the pair came to an agreement: Porter would pay her ex-husband spousal and child support, and they would share custody of the children – 70 percent of the time with Porter and 30 percent with Hoffman.

Porter’s campaign notes that according to a petitioner’s brief, Hoffman regretted making the allegations against his wife as they were hashing out a custody and financial agreement. 

‘Porter’s then-husband’s [protective order] request was not supported by any evidence, other than his false allegations,’ Porter campaign spokesperson Lindsay Reilly told DailyMail.com. ‘This common defensive tactic is designed to intimidate a victim.’