Despite Claims Of Unwanted Touching By Four Women Franken Plans To Keep Senate Post
Will this presidential election be the most important in American history?
A total of four women are claiming Senator Al Franken (D-MN) touched them in an inappropriate manner but there are no signs the senator plans to resign from his post.
The Star Tribune reports:
Sen. Al Franken plans to stay in the U.S. Senate and try to win back Minnesotans’ trust.
The Minnesota Democrat, who has been accused by four women — two of them anonymously — of inappropriate contact, issued a Thanksgiving afternoon apology and pledge. He wrote that he “feels terribly that I’ve made some women feel badly.” He called himself “a warm person” who likes to hug people when they’re being photographed with him, but clearly, his embrace “crossed a line for some women.”
The Huffington Post reports on two of the newest accusers:
Two more women have told HuffPost that Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) touched their butts in separate incidents. These are the third and fourth such allegations against Franken in the past week. Leeann Tweeden, a radio host, wrote last week that Franken had kissed and groped her without her consent during a 2006 USO tour. On Monday, Lindsay Menz accused Franken of groping her at the Minnesota State Fair in 2010.
The two additional women, who said they were not familiar with each others’ stories, both spoke on condition of anonymity. But their stories, which describe events during Franken’s first campaign for the Senate, are remarkably similar — and both women have been telling them privately for years.
The U.S. Senate plans to investigate the claims against Franken by launching an Ethics Committee investigation but that decision is not yet formalized.