7 senators regret pushing Al Franken to resign, as new reporting casts doubt on key allegation

https://news.yahoo.com/al-franken-senate-resignation-regrets-jane-mayer-140923542.html

Christopher WilsonSenior Writer
,Yahoo News•July 22, 2019

Seven Democratic senators have said they regret calling on former Minnesota Sen. Al Franken to resign over accusations of sexual harassment.

In a new story in the New Yorker, investigative reporter Jane Mayer found a number of holes in the story of Franken’s primary accuser.

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When Mayer asked Franken if he regretted resigning, he replied, “Oh, yeah. Absolutely,” and expressed the wish that he had appeared before a Senate Ethics Committee hearing. While Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York has faced much of the blame from donors for being one of the first Democrats to call for him to step down, Franken criticized Minority Leader Chuck Schumer for “not insisting to his caucus that an investigation was under way, and that due process required facts before a verdict.”

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According to Mayer’s story, parts of Tweeden’s accusations don’t hold up. Tweeden asserted that Franken wrote a skit expressly to allow him to kiss her,

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But Mayer found that exact skit was performed on previous USO tours, and two actresses who had previously performed it with Franken said they had done the same scene without incident.

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