Former Senator Al Franken Regrets His Quick Resignation
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Al Franken has been very quiet since his abrupt resignation from the Senate in 2017, but when he does venture out, he says it’s common for someone to stop him on the street and give him some version of “You shouldn’t have resigned.”
Franken typically responds with a “Yup” and moves on, he tells Jane Mayer of the New Yorker. And “when I asked him if he truly regretted his decision to resign, he said, ‘Oh, yeah. Absolutely,'” writes Mayer. Franken wishes he would have been allowed to appear before the Senate Ethics Committee to refute the allegations of unwanted kissing and touching made by several women, but he says Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer flatly rejected his request for “due process.”
Seven current or former senators who joined the call for his resignation tell Mayer they now regret doing so. Kirsten Gillibrand, a 2020 candidate and leading voice in calling for him to quit, is not among them, and no doubt she’s regretting it today.
The story takes a long look at the allegations themselves, including the first one by Leeann Tweeden, who performed with Franken in 2006 on a USO tour. Tweeden says Franken wrote a skit just for her as an excuse to kiss her, then “stuck his tongue in my mouth.”
But Mayer reports that Franken had been performing that same skit for years with other actresses, who tell her the kissing scene was no big deal. (Franken denies the tongue part.) Mayer also talks to an anonymous congressional staffer whose accusation of an attempt at an unwanted kiss may have been the final straw against Franken.
He says he’s a touchy, show-biz kind of guy, and Mayer asks the woman if it’s possible what she interpreted as a sexual advance was more of a “clumsy thank-you gesture.” The woman responds that Franken’s intentions were irrelevant.
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I had been thinking for some time that what the Democrats lack was a candidate like Al Franken. But an uncomfortable kiss? That’s far more important than minor things like the survival of civilization, democracy and the government of laws, not men.
We are a mean, narrow minded, angry and vindictive country and getting worse.
To equate what he’s accused of with rape casts a shadow on all legitimate cases of it.
No one has ever answered why Roger Stone tweeted about this a day before before Al was aware of the charges.
It doesn’t pass the smell test
Just say no to Kirsten Gillibrand!
We all are sad you left so fast Al.