As the floodgates open, as many
as 40 members could be jeopardized by a fresh round of allegations.
When
Minnesota Senator Al Franken announced on Thursday that he would
resign, he made it clear that he did not believe he had besmirched
one of the nation’s fundamental organs of government. “I know in my heart,
nothing that I have done as a senator—nothing—has brought dishonor on this
institution, and I am confident that the Ethics Committee would agree,” he said
on the Senate floor, adding that “some of the allegations against me are simply
not true,” and others happened “very differently” than they were described to
the press. Nevertheless, he stepped aside, becoming the second congressperson
to do so in the wake of sexual harassment allegations that week. And it now
appears that his resignation is only the tip of a gargantuan iceberg: according
to several media reporters, CNN and The Washington Post have
dozens of stories in the works to expose at least 20
lawmakers, and potentially as many as 40—over
1 in 10 male members of congress, all told.
Even
without the reports in the works, the past two weeks have seen the Weinstein
effect rip through Congress, ousting lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.
Texas Republican Joe Barton announced his
retirement last week over allegations of inappropriate sexting,
though in his resignation statement he denied abusing
his power and sexually harassing women. On Tuesday, longtime Democratic
Rep. John Conyers, whom multiple former staffers have accused
of sexual harassment, conceded to mounting callsfor
his resignation (but continued to deny wrongdoing).
Just hours after Franken’s speech, Republican Congressman Trent Franks announced that
he would resign under threat of an ethics probe for allegedly sexually
harassing women in his office; in a subsequent statement,
Franks claimed that he had asked two of his female employees whether they would
serve as surrogates. Observers speculated that there was more to the story,
noting that the allegations were serious enough for Speaker Paul Ryan to ask for
Franks’s immediate resignation before a probe could be carried
out. (The next day, Franks tendered his
immediate resignation after his wife was admitted to the
hospital.)
Meanwhile
Texas Republican Blake Farenthold, faces a similar probe after
potential new evidence surfaced about his $84,000 taxpayer-funded settlement
with Lauren Greene, a former aide who said Farenthold sexually
harassed her—“The Committee on Ethics does not appear to be letting it lie with
the Office of Congressional Ethics’ recommendation not to pursue further,”
Greene’s attorney told Politico.
(In a separate
statement, Farenthold neither confirmed nor denied the allegations,
citing the Congressional Accountability Act.) Democratic Rep. Ruben
Kihuen is similarly holding on following claims that he sexually
harassed a campaign staffer during the 2016 election, despite House Minority
Leader Nancy Pelosi calling for his resignation. “This is not
about politics,” Pelosi told reporters on
Thursday. “That’s the last thing this is about.” (Kihuen has previously denied
the allegations.)
Given
that Congress’s Office of Compliance—the only recourse staffers have to report
abuse—is all but explicitly
designed to protect lawmakers, a reckoning over sexual
harassment on Capitol Hill is long overdue. Democrats, unlike Republicans, are
mostly cheering the sea change, even as some wonder whether Franken’s
resignation may have set a harsh new precedent. “This does establish a new
standard for this body,” Senator Tim Kaine told reporters
on Thursday. “And that standard is: behavior before you were elected is fair
game for determining whether you should be here.” He added, “If that’s the
standard, we have to be committed to trying to apply that in an evenhanded
way.”
Of
course, the odds of Kaine’s “evenhanded” standard being applied evenly are
approximately zero. Like almost everything else in this era of
hyper-partisanship, the political punishment is likely to depend on the party
of the accused. Franken stepped down under pressure from Democrats hoping to
seize the moral high ground in the upcoming Alabama Senate election, where
voters remain torn between
alleged ephebophile Roy Moore, and Democrat Doug
Jones. If Democrats have Franken for a model, Republicans have Moore
and Donald Trump, both
of whom have refused to acknowledge allegations against them, setting their own
precedent that’s straight out of the Access Hollywood playbook.
The White House line where Trump is concerned—apology equals guilt, denial equals innocence—is enough to sway loyalists, but it may not be sufficient to
convince independents and women, the latter of whom are largely responsible for the
president’s nose dive in the polls. Similarly, Moore’s strategy of defiance may
work in Alabama—a recent poll showed that 6 in 10 white women say they’ll vote for the
former judge—but in less partisan states, it could prove politically poisonous.
Source: vanityfair
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