TV Host Claims Al Franken Forcibly Kissed and Groped Her
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by Michelle Mark
Los Angeles TV broadcaster Leeann Tweeden alleged in a 790 KABC column that Sen. Al Franken of Minnesota kissed and groped her without her consent in 2006, while she was part of a United Service Organizations tour to entertain military servicemembers abroad.
Tweeden said that Franken had been headlining the tour and wrote a comedy skit in which Franken’s character attempted to kiss Tweeden’s character. Tweeden said she believed she could turn her head or cover his mouth with her hand “to get more laughs from the crowd.”
But during a rehearsal of the kiss that Franken repeatedly insisted on, Tweeden said, Franken forcefully kissed her.
“He repeated that actors really need to rehearse everything and that we must practice the kiss. I said ‘OK’ so he would stop badgering me,” Tweeden wrote. “We did the line leading up to the kiss and then he came at me, put his hand on the back of my head, mashed his lips against mine and aggressively stuck his tongue in my mouth.”
Tweeden said she felt “disgusted and violated” by the kiss, and pushed Franken away and told him that if he ever did that again, she “wouldn’t be so nice about it the next time.”
Later, the pair performed the skit and Tweeden said she turned her head to dodge Franken’s kiss.
She added that she told neither the tour’s sponsor, the Sergeant Major of the Army, nor the USO representative about the incident.
“At the time I didn’t want to cause trouble. We were in the middle of a war zone, it was the first show of our Holiday tour, I was a professional, and I could take care of myself. I told a few of the others on the tour what Franken had done and they knew how I felt about it,” Tweeden wrote. “I tried to let it go, but I was angry.”
But Franken’s alleged misconduct didn’t end there, Tweeden continued. Franken groped her breasts while she was asleep during the 36-hour flight back to Los Angeles — an incident captured in a photograph that Tweeden didn’t see until she was back in the United States.
It sounds like it was taken by the official photographer for the tour. pic.twitter.com/zNpgipjXVB
— 𝓥𝓲𝓬𝓴𝓲 𝓕𝓻𝔂 🍳 (@VickiFry) November 16, 2017
“I couldn’t believe it. He groped me, without my consent, while I was asleep,” she wrote. “I felt violated all over again. Embarrassed. Belittled. Humiliated. … How dare anyone grab my breasts like this and think it’s funny?”
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Wait a minute. It is obvious that Al Franken is posing that for the camera. If he felt anything it was the the flak jacket. It looks more like a joke picture than anything else. OK, in today’s climate he should not have done it. The lines are really getting blurred on what is sexual harassment and what is not. I may be wrong here, but where does paying someone a compliment end and sexual harassment begin. I am pretty well safe these days since I pretty well stay at home all by self, but there was a time when I was working around other people. I agree that Al Franken was wrong in this situation since physical contact is never called for, but a young woman on TV was complaining that her boss telling her she looked good in her outfit made her uncomfortable. My question would be, then why wear an outfit to look good if you did not want someone to notice? Geez.
It was a joke picture. The Trump gang stirred up this non-story that the MSM has turned into a major news story.
Resign.
You think Franken should resign? I don’t think he should have been so quick to fawn at the feet of his accuser. All he had to do was say, as he did, that he didn’t remember the skit that way. Clearly the picture was a joke, one in bad taste no doubt, but a joke. Of course he had no choice but to apologize for that bit of insanity.
Ugh Al, not you too.
My thought exactly, and, rumor has it the republican black ops folks are prepared to leak more information that could be damning to democrat politicians. It’s becoming very McCarthy-like…
Now what and who do we believe or not believe? Are claims of these events some sort of mass delusion based on media reports? Are they true? All of them? It’s getting crazier and crazier out there.