Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) has been strangely silent as allegations against controversial Senate hopeful Graham Platner emerge, despite the fact she played a significant role in the #MeToo movement at its height, leading the charge against two men facing sexual misconduct accusations. Platner’s ex-girlfriend spoke with the New York Times and alleged that he engaged in aggressive physical behavior during their relationship.
Platner is expected to become the Democratic Party nominee for U.S. Senate in Maine. And yet, Gillibrand has kept quiet in the aftermath of the accusations against the Maine Democrat, despite formerly being very vocal in her alleged support for victims of powerful men. Back in 2017, a #MeToo allegation could completely obliterate someone’s political career.
At that point in time, Gillibrand was one of the loudest voices calling for the resignation of former Democratic Sen. Al Franken. A total of eight women had come forward accusing Franken of sexual harassment, including claims that he groped or forcibly kissed women without consent. Franken stepped down from Congress as the scandal boiled after receiving intense pressure from both his own party and the political right.
According to Yahoo News, Franken did an interview with Conan O’Brien sometime later, in which he stated that he “deserved due process” that he did not receive. When the media placed Gillibrand under heavy scrutiny for her decision to go after a member of her own party when she was running for the Democratic presidential nomination, she doubled down on her decision.
“I know the issue of Sen. Franken is hard for many Democrats. But he had eight credible sexual harassment allegations against him, and I had to choose whether to stay silent, or not. If some megadonors have a problem with that, that’s on them,” she went on to write in a post on X in 2019. “Silencing women for the powerful, or for your friends, or for convenience, is neither acceptable, nor just,” she stated in another post.
Gillibrand also came down hard against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh in 2018 during his confirmation process, after unproven allegations surfaced that he allegedly groped Christine Blasey Ford several decades before when they were both teenagers. “I think this should affect every senator’s view on Judge Kavanaugh,” she told the media at the time.
“I’m hopeful the Senate will at least have some measure of review, maybe a hearing, some measure of analysis of this accusation, and have some measure of clarity on whether this is disqualifying. I believe it is disqualifying, given what we know,” she continued. The senator poured out her rage against Kavanaugh on social media platform X during his confirmation process, saying repeatedly that she believes women who allege misconduct by men.
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“#IBelieveChristine Blasey Ford,” she wrote in a post on the platform. “Her credible allegation of sexual assault against Brett Kavanaugh should disqualify him from ever being confirmed to the Supreme Court.” However, since she is seemingly refusing to call out Platner and those who support him in the midst of serious sexual allegations, something she had no problem doing a few years ago, many are slamming her for hypocrisy.
Lyndsey Fifield, who is Platner’s former girlfriend, told the New York Times that Platner was often physically rough with her. “[S]he said he regularly grabbed her by the shoulders — sometimes hard enough to leave marks — and, on one occasion, yanked her out of a cab by her wrist after an argument when she wanted to stay in the car,” the publication said.
“During one argument, she recalled, he twisted her arm behind her back, shoved her into a bedroom and held the door closed from the other side so she couldn’t get out, telling her to remain there until she was ‘calm.’ Eventually, Ms. Fifield said, she fell asleep and left the next morning,” the NY Times report went on to say. Gillibrand has not commented about Platner since the Times story was published.
Before the sexual misconduct allegations, Platner was involved in a number of other controversies, including his Nazi tattoo and a social media post he shared about masturbating in public portable toilets. He also exchanged sexual messages with other women while he was still married. Gillibrand and other Democrats lined up at the time to show support for Platner, despite these early scandals, with the New York senator saying she was “very confident we are going to win Maine.”
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