In the wake of sexual misconduct allegations against Sen. Al Franken (D-MN), Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) said Thursday that former President Bill Clinton should have resigned from office over his affair with Monica Lewinsky.
“Yes, I think that is the appropriate response,” Gillibrand told the New York Times when asked if Clinton should have stepped down.
Gillibrand suggested that such a relationship is viewed differently now than it was at the time.
“Things have changed today, and I think under those circumstances there should be a very different reaction,” she said. “And I think in light of this conversation, we should have a very different conversation about President Trump, and a very different conversation about allegations against him.”
A spokesperson for Gillibrand later told the Times that Gillibrand was trying to say that if Clinton’s affair with Lewinsky had happened today, he should have been compelled to step down. Gillibrand is a longtime supporter of Hillary Clinton and backed her 2016 campaign. Both Hillary and Bill Clinton also supported Gillibrand in her first bid for Congress in 2006.
Gillibrand said that the debate over sexual misconduct has transformed recently and that people are viewing misconduct differently.
“What the ‘Me Too’ movement has done is transform this debate,” Gillibrand told the Times. “I think because, when you have hundreds of thousands of people coming out every day about all industries saying, ‘This is what happened to me,’ I think a lot of people have finally realized, ‘Wow, I didn’t quite realize this.’”
The New York senator on Thursday said that the allegations against Franken are “deeply disturbing” and called for an ethics committee investigation. Los Angeles news anchor Leeann Tweeden accused Franken of forcibly kissing and groping her in 2006 while they were entertaining the troops abroad. Franken apologized for his behavior and called for a Senate Ethics Committee probe into the allegations, but he also said that he viewed the incident with Tweeden differently. The alleged incidents occurred before Franken held public office.
And trump thanks you for shoving his disaster of a tax plan and Mueller developments off the front pages, Senator. Oh, also, huffpo thanks you for the clicks.
Not sure what good this accomplishes, though, besides lumping Bill Clinton in with guys like Weinstein and Moore, which I thought was the other’s side’s job.
I’m a bit worried that my senator has gone off the deep end.
As far as I recall, Miss Lewinsky and Mr. Clinton knew what they were doing…
Must admit I prefer the French approach to this…
(And a bit disappointed by Sen. Gillibrand ).
I’m trying to give Senator Gillibrand the benefit of the doubt here, inasmuch as this could be seen as an attempt to shift the conversation toward a position where possible revelations-to-come from Drumpf’s victims will be given more weight. Sort of like re-positioning the fulcrum when you have a lever too short to really lift a heavy object, but, just maybe this spot will do it. I fear I’m being overly generous, and share @nemo’s concern. Thusfar, I think, my Senators, both women, have kept their oars in the boat.
This nation has some really effed up attitudes about sex. For one thing what you do in your own time is a private matter, and if you’re married whatever conflicts that causes is between you and your spouse. If your spouse is OK with it people need to butt out. If they’re not OK with it they need to butt out. Clinton lied because of who knows what reasons. Embarrassment, Hillary wrath, who knows why. His oath was to uphold the Constitution and laws of the nation. So he lied about an affair. Study your history, there are tales of philandering for many Presidents, they just weren’t put on the spot about it. Ike, Kennedy, FDR, LBJ, the list goes on. None of them had a concerted group of legal teams committed to ending their administrations, whatever it took to do it, on whatever technicality could be employed. You put a man under oath and ask him about his sex life outside his marriage? Then you want to get out the noose when he fibs about it? WTF? It’s sex. Get over it.