Al Franken Accused of Sexual Assault

[GMDino]

(11-20-2017, 05:27 PM)bfine32 Wrote: Ut Oh:

https://www.yahoo.com/news/woman-says-al-franken-groped-142249818.html

Good thing he insisted there be an ethics investigation.

And his first accuser thinks he should stay in office, which is weird.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2017/11/17/franken_accuser_tweeden_tears_up_on_cnn_ive_been_angry_about_it_for_10_years.html

Quote:TAPPER: What do you think about the Senate is calling for an ethics investigation, ethics committee investigation. Franken himself called for it. But just a day ago, when it came out that more than $15 million had been paid off in settlements to women for sexual harassment and other charges by Congress, there was a lot of question about, should Congress really be in charge of investigating itself? Can we really? 


I mean, I don't know if you saw in the coverage of it when Jackie Speier did her hearing in the House a couple days ago, but they put up a chart of what women or men need to do to lodge a complaint of sexual harassment. And it's this process, it's like a Rube Goldberg design that only could have been designed by somebody who actually was a sexual harasser who was trying to dissuade women from lodging these complaints. 

I guess the question, is the Senate, if ethics committee, forgetting Al Franken for a second, is it enough for senators or should there be something else? 

TWEEDEN: I think there should be -- if anybody is going to be investigated, I mean, I'm not talking about this case in particular, but it should always be an independent investigation because you can't expect the -- I'm not going to say swamp, you can't expect people within their own group to investigate themselves. That's never going to be a fair investigation because they're always going to protect themselves. 

So I would think an outside investigation or an outside party that's unbiased and not part of that affiliation is always going to be called for because they're always going to protect themselves. And that's $15 million payout, you -- I mean, that's like having these NDAs, that's how you protect -- 

TAPPER: Right.

TWEEDEN: -- that's how Harvey Weinstein was able to protect because that's how women stay silent, or men, right? When you can pay off and say, I'm going to pay you for your silence. OK, maybe I abused you, maybe I sexually harassed you, maybe I raped you, but if I pay you money, but you're going to stay silent, they can continue that type of behavior. 

TAPPER: They do. That's the whole point. Right.

TWEEDEN: And they do that in Congress, and Congress they're paying them off with our money. 

TAPPER: Right. TWEEDEN: They're paying them off with taxpayer money. I'm sure that $15 million didn't come out of their personal pocket, right? 

TAPPER: Yes.

TWEEDEN: So how do we not know names? How do we not know what happened? Names need to be named and the money needs to come out of their own personal checkbooks, OK?

This is wrong. When names start being named, right, and I think there was a call yesterday on Capitol Hill that if we start knowing names and people start being called out, maybe this behavior will start changing. 

TAPPER: Do you -- are you willing to testify before the Senate Ethics Committee? 

TWEEDEN: I would be, sure. I mean, I -- yes. OK, if they asked me to. 

TAPPER: Do you think that Senator Franken should step down from his job or if he fails to be expelled from the Senate by his colleagues? 

TWEEDEN: I'm not asking for that. I mean, that's not why I came out with my story. I'm not asking for him to step down as senator, that's not my -- if somebody else calls for that, but that's not what I'm asking. 

TAPPER: But in your heart, I mean, do you have any feeling? I mean, it sounds like you've nursed this understandably with a lot of resentment, again, completely understandably for 11 years. Do you want him punished? I mean, what -- or do you just want to be acknowledged as a human being and apologized to? 

TWEEDEN: Yes. I think that's it, the latter. I think I just wanted him to apologize to me for that. And say he was sorry. And I think that second statement that he came out with and the acknowledgment of saying that it was wrong and that heartfelt and, you know, gathering his staff and saying, you know, what, it was wrong, and I think everybody needs to take a good, hard look. And I think he really came from a place of honesty there. 

And I think that's really where change is going to be driven from. Not from the victims coming out and talking about it. I think it's going to come from the people who maybe do the abusing that don't even realize they're doing the abusing, because it's so a part of the culture and it's been so a part of when you can do this and look at a camera and laugh and think that that's OK and you can get away with it and you know you're being photographed and you know you're doing it to a woman and you think that that's OK and you can do it with impunity and you think you can just get away with it and it's ha-ha funny -- that's what's wrong with the culture, you know? So if we can have the people doing the abusing change, that's where, that's when the change is going to occur.