White House Claims Election Nullifies Sexual Assault Claims, But Trump Dredges up Dems’ Past Scandals

Justin DuckhamNov 28th, 2017, 6:52 am
 

 

White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders has repeatedly told reporters that sexual assault allegations against Donald Trump are null-and-void due to his 2016 election win.

“This was covered pretty extensively during the campaign,” Sanders told reporters earlier this month. “We addressed that then. The American people, I think, spoke very loud and clear when they elected this President.”

If the administration genuinely believes that winning an election takes care of any lingering campaign misdeeds, then it’s a courtesy the President is clearly unwilling to grant others.

There are at least three scandals that Trump has attempted to revive long after the elections that put them in the public eye have taken place.

1. Elizabeth Warren’s Native American ancestry

During Monday’s briefing, Sanders said concerns over Trump’s Access Hollywood video were “litigated and certainly answered during the election by the overwhelming support for the President.”

In the same briefing, however, Sanders expressed disbelief over why the media wasn’t spending more time questioning Elizabeth Warren’s claim that she had Native American ancestry, a scandal that stemmed back to 2012.

“I think that Senator Warren was very offensive when she lied about something specifically to advance her career,” Sanders said. “I don’t understand why no one is asking that question and why that isn’t constantly covered.”

Questions surrounding Warren’s heritage did come up but didn’t derail the candidate. She ended up winning against Scott Brown by 54-46 percent.

 

2. Al Franken’s Lesley Stahl joke

When Al Franken was accused of sexual misconduct, it was no surprise that Trump was eager to jump into the fray.

In typical Trumpian fashion, he even gave the Minnesota Democrat a nickname: Al Frankenstien (sic).

But beyond focusing on the headlines of the day, Trump stretched back over nine years.

“Lesley Stahl tape?” Trump cryptically asked.

While there was no tape, it was a nod to a 2008 scandal focused on a 1995 New York Magazine article profiling a Saturday Night Live writers meeting.

According to the article, Franken pitched a scene in which 60 Minutes’ Andy Rooney would say that he drugs and rapes reporter Stahl.

“‘I give the pills to Leslie Stahl. Then when Leslie is passed out, I take her to the closet and rape her,” Franken said. “Or ‘That’s why you never see Lesley until February. Or, ‘When she passes out. I put her in various positions and take pictures of her.’”

The emergence of the article certainly didn’t help the tight race between incumbent Senator Norm Coleman, who described it as “degrading and humiliating,” but Minnesota voters nevertheless put Franken in office via an astonishingly slim 42.99-42.98 percent margin.

 

3. Richard Blumenthal lies about Vietnam service

Richard Blumenthal told veterans in 2008 that he served in Vietnam, adding that he understood the “taunts, the insults, sometimes even physical abuse” that they faced when they returned home.

During his Senate bid two years later, this became a major issue.

Blumenthal never actually served in Vietnam, instead of accepting deferments and then finding a place in the Marine Reserves where he did not go overseas.

While Trump similarly took deferments and has been accused of dodging the draft, this has been something he’s eagerly revisited, seemingly whenever Blumenthal criticizes him.

Trump brought it up in 3 tweets in August of this year, twice in May and two additional times in February.

The reason Trump has pounded away on this likely due to the fact that 2010’s Senate race cited Blumenthal against Linda McMahon, the current Small Business Administrator and the wife of one of the few people Trump has publicly identified as a friend: wrestling mogul Vince McMahon.

Despite the scandal, Blumenthal won by 12 percent.

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