Platner Says Accuser Is Lying About Him Being ‘Rough’ With Her: ‘Not True’

Presumptive Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner denied allegations by an ex-girlfriend who claims he physically hurt her.

Platner is expected to win next week’s Democratic primary to face Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) in November.

On Thursday, The New York Times published a piece that cited multiple women Platner had previously dated or associated with, one of whom, Lyndsey Fifield, alleged that Platner was sometimes rough with her and that she was afraid.

“During one argument, she recalled, he twisted her arm behind her back, shoved her into a bedroom and held the door closed from the other side so she couldn’t get out, telling her to remain there until she was ‘calm,'”the Times report said. “Eventually, Ms. Fifield said, she fell asleep and left the next morning.”

Fifield said, “It hurt,” she said. But she added: “It didn’t cause an injury, it didn’t break my arm.”

In a statement to the Times, which described Fifield as “a Virginia conservative who has worked for right-leaning groups and Republican campaigns” and who is “supportive of Susan Collins,” the Platner campaign noted Fifield’s history in Republican politics.

“Let’s be very clear: This is a lifelong G.O.P. operative who’s dedicated her career to electing Republicans,” the campaign said.

On Thursday’s edition of All In on MS NOW, host Chris Hayes summarized the Times piece, which also discusses Platner’s tattoo of a totenkopf, a symbol used by an elite group of the Nazis’ Waffen SS Panzer Division. Platner was also revealed to have been sending sexually explicit messages to women who were not his wife.

Hayes welcomed Platner to the show and immediately asked about the more serious allegations from Fifield:

HAYES: There’s some serious stuff I want to go through with you, and I think voters have a right to know about it. And I want to, with what Ms. Fifield says about being “rough,” is the term in the . And I’m going to just read you the account so you have it. This is from the Times.

“Mr. Platner could be rough with her, Ms. Fifield said, particularly when they were drinking, leaving her shaken and sometimes afraid. In the interviews, Ms. Fifield grappled with how to process her experiences. She was quick to note that he “never hit me, he never punched me,'” she said.

“But she said he regularly grabbed her by the shoulders — sometimes hard enough to leave marks — and, on one occasion, yanked her out of a cab by her wrist after an argument when she wanted to stay in the car.

“During one argument, she recalled, he twisted her arm behind her back, shoved her into a bedroom and held the door closed from the other side so she couldn’t get out, telling her to remain there until she was “calm.” Eventually, Ms. Fifield said, she fell asleep and left the next morning.

“’It hurt,’ she said. But she added: ‘It didn’t cause an injury, it didn’t break my arm.'”

Did that happen?

PLATNER: No, it did not. There are some allegations in this piece that I just want to be kind of unequivocal about, are simply not true. Anything alleging physicality, anything alleging that I knew what my tattoo was, these are the statements of someone who’s politically motivated.

In this piece, there’s a lot about my struggling not being a good boyfriend, certainly self-medicating with alcohol. And I’ve been very up front since the beginning of this campaign that that was a pretty dark period of my life after I came back from my combat service. And that’s what that combat– that’s what that kind of life looks like. And so there are things in this that I absolutely will take responsibility for and have been speaking about openly for months now. But those serious allegations are just not true.

HAYES: You did not grab her by the wrist. You did not put your hands on her shoulders. You did not push her into a room that you closed the door on. She’s lying about that is what you’re saying?

PLATNER: Yes. That is not true.

Watch above via MS NOW.

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