Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) has continued to dismiss allegations against Maine’s disgraced Democrat U.S. Senate candidate Graham Platner from his initial accuser who is a conservative woman.
During a recent interview with the senator, CNN’s Jake Tapper explained Platner dropped out of the race last week after serious allegations against him that included rape and physical abuse.
“One of the first women who accused him of domestic violence… was Lyndsey Fifield who is a conservative. At the time you dismissed her allegations. You said she worked for right-wing political operations. But then a week ago Monday, a woman named Jenny Racicot… accused Platner on the record, on camera, of rape. And the next day Fifield talked about what he did to her. As somebody who conducted the interviews I found them both credible. Do you think you were too quick to dismiss Fifield’s allegations?” Tapper continued.
Whitehouse replied, “I think it’s important when you’re looking at allegations to, and I’ve done this as a prosecutor for years, to evaluate things like whether there is corroboration. And with respect to the first allegation there was none. Whether there’s motive to mislead or fabricate, there was plenty. The woman was involved in basically a Koch brothers funded political operation and had been specifically involved in Maine political activities against Platner.”
“So, yeah there came a point when the straw broke the camel’s back, but if we don’t look with some professional skepticism at allegations then I think we have not done our duties. And then when the allegations continue there comes a point where yeah, you acknowledge that yes, there’s enough here to go forward. That’s the way prosecutors think, that’s the way I thought about this,” the senator concluded.
However, Tapper ended the interview by stating, “As somebody who interviewed her, she did have corroboration. She had a number of friends whom she told the sad and scary stories to years and years before. She had diary entries. There was a number of corroborating evidence.”
Fifield, who dated Platner between 2013 and 2014 and who previously accused him of physical abuse, claimed he would pull condoms off during sex and not tell her, even after she informed him she was not taking birth control, according to Breitbart News.
As the controversy exploded around Platner, President Donald Trump suggested that accusations of abuse from a woman who worked in conservative politics were not taken as seriously as the claims from Racicot.
“When this woman came out, everybody believed her,” he said of Racicot, who accused Platner of raping her when they were in a casual relationship a few years ago.
The Democrat Party used up millions of dollars in backing “Nazi tattoo” Platner who formally withdrew from the race last week.
It is also important to note that “Whitehouse has been a Platner backer for months despite those controversies, donating $10,000 to his campaign and co-hosting a lunch fundraiser for him back in March. Last fall, Whitehouse told Politico he’d spoken to Platner privately and thought he had ‘a wonderfully appealing local background and story,’” WPRI reported July 7.
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