Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is calling on the Senate Ethics Committee to investigate allegations that Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., kissed and groped a woman without her consent in 2006.
“As with all credible allegations of sexual harassment or assault, I believe the Ethics Committee should review the matter. I hope the Democratic Leader will join me on this. Regardless of party, harassment and assault are completely unacceptable — in the workplace or anywhere else,” the Kentucky Republican said in a statement, according to The Hill.
Democrat New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand stated that she also supports an investigation, according to NPR reporter Susan Davis.
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Gillibrand was among the legislators who introduced the “ME TOO” Act yesterday aimed at addressing sexual harassment toward congressional staff members and interns on Capitol Hill, according to CBS News.
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Radio and television personality Leeann Tweeden tweeted a photo on Thursday of Franken grabbing her breasts while she was asleep.
WARNING: The photo below will be offensive to some viewers.
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The incident happened in December 2006 when the two were on a USO tour in the Middle East prior to Franken being elected senator, she recounted in a story for KABC.
Tweeden revealed that Franken also forcibly kissed her without her consent.
“When I saw the script, Franken had written a moment when his character comes at me for a ‘kiss’. I suspected what he was after, but I figured I could turn my head at the last minute, or put my hand over his mouth, to get more laughs from the crowd,” the media personality recounted.
Tweeden continued, “On the day of the show Franken and I were alone backstage going over our lines one last time. He said to me, ‘We need to rehearse the kiss.’ I laughed and ignored him. Then he said it again. I said something like, ‘Relax Al, this isn’t SNL…we don’t need to rehearse the kiss.’”
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Franken persisted, saying actors need to rehearse everything, so Tweeden finally relented.
“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,” she wrote.
“I immediately pushed him away with both of my hands against his chest and told him if he ever did that to me again I wouldn’t be so nice about it the next time.”
Tweeden recalled that when she walked away all she could “think about was getting to a bathroom as fast as possible to rinse the taste of him out of my mouth. I felt disgusted and violated.”
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She said the photo of Franken groping her was taken on an Air Force transport plane during their trip back to the United States.
When she saw it, she “felt violated all over again. Embarrassed. Belittled. Humiliated. How dare anyone grab my breasts like this and think it’s funny?”
She showed her boyfriend, now husband the picture at the time, but decided against going public.
Franken apologized to Tweeden on Thursday in a statement.
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“I certainly don’t remember the rehearsal for the skit in the same way, but I send my sincerest apologies to Leeann. As to the photo, it was clearly intended to be funny but wasn’t. I shouldn’t have done it,” he said.
Radio talk show host Larry O’Connor wrote that Tweeden will join him Thursday afternoon on his Washington, D.C. based program to discuss the incident.
The interview is slated to take place at 3:05 p.m. EDT.
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