The senators who recanted their initial support for former Minnesota senator Al Franken’s resignation remained silent as a ninth woman has stepped forward to say that the ex-Democratic senator groped her without consent.
An anonymous veteran who also worked as a Democratic Senate staffer on Monday became the ninth woman to accuse Franken of unwanted touching or kissing. The newest allegation comes after the New Yorker‘s Jane Mayer suggested in July in “The Case of Al Franken” that 36 Democratic senators were wrong to demand Franken’s resignation after the first 8 allegations.
The woman told New York Magazine that the comedian intentionally groped her buttocks during a 2006 photo-op.
“He puts his hand on my ass. He’s telling the photographer, ‘Take another one. I think I blinked. Take another one.’ And I’m just frozen,” she said. “It’s so violating. And then he gives me a little squeeze on my buttock, and I am bright red. I don’t say anything at the time, but I felt deeply, deeply uncomfortable.”
Mayer argued over the course of 12,000 words that Franken’s first accuser, Leann Tweeden, was a politically motivated conservative who schemed with talk show hosts to go after the liberal senator. She blamed the other seven incidents on Franken’s lack of coordination and warm demeanor, pointing out that he “could be physically obtuse.” She quoted Franken and his supporters making the case that the disgraced ex-senator was “sort of clumsy,” “a very physical person,” “a warm, tactile person,” and a “social—not a sexual—’lip-kisser.'” – READ MORE