Why Franken Should Not Resign - Joe Conason

[DonViejo]

Full article posted with the permission of the author - Don

November 28, 2017 3:12 am

The chorus of loud demands for Senator Al Franken’s resignation began from the moment that Leeann Tweeden accused him of sexual harassment. Those calls intensified after three more women — two of them anonymous — said the Minnesota Democrat had touched them inappropriately. They haven’t subsided yet.

Although not all the facts are clear, Franken apologized immediately. Since then, he has admitted that his conduct on some occasions had fallen short of the respect for women he has always professed.

“I let a lot of people down,” the former comedian told the Minneapolis Star-Tribune in a contrite interview, vowing to win back the trust of his constituents.

To say that Franken’s friends and associates are shocked is a profound understatement. Here I must disclose that I’ve considered Al and his wife, Franni, to be friends of our family for more than a decade, ever since the days when I appeared regularly on his Air America radio show. And I’m as stunned as anyone else, including his female colleagues at “Saturday Night Live,” who have signed a letter supporting him. He was funny and profane, but I never saw him behave with anything but impeccable respect for everyone, male and female alike.

Even if we had never become friends, I wouldn’t expect Franken to quit. Anybody who saw him endure his first tough Senate race, or watched him become one of the most effective Democrats in Washington, knows he is no quitter. He has returned to work while the Senate Ethics Committee pursues its investigation of his case.

Of course, he can reconsider resignation, if and when Donald Trump resigns — or at least stops disparaging and lying about the women he assaulted. Or perhaps when Roy Moore, still on his way to the Senate, speaks one honest word about the women who accuse him of luring, molesting and assaulting them when they were still girls.

While we await the truth from Trump and Moore, the Ethics Committee probe of Franken will proceed, as it should, to assess the evidence with his full cooperation. They should also examine the intriguing clues to a right-wing campaign aimed at unseating Franken, which features Trump dirty trickster Roger Stone, Russian bots and various unsavory figures on the so-called alt-right.

They hate Franken for exposing Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ lies about Russia. But the well-earned anger of the Trumpsters is certainly no reason for a Democratic senator to leave office.

Nor is there any reason why a Democrat should be less entitled to due process than a Republican like David Vitter or Bob Packwood, both former senators who were subject to ethics probes over sexual misconduct. Their cases are instructive now.

In 2007 Vitter, a far-right religious fraud from Louisiana, admitted that he had solicited prostitutes. The Ethics Committee eventually dismissed Vitter’s case, not because he didn’t commit a crime but because his conduct occurred before he ran for the Senate, never resulted in criminal charges, and didn’t involve misuse of Senate resources or staff. Packwood, a moderate Republican from Oregon, was plausibly accused in 1992 of forcing himself on dozens of women, including several who had lobbied him or worked on his staff.

Three years later an exhaustive probe by the Ethics Committee — then chaired by Mitch McConnell, who is now the Senate majority leader — resulted in a 10,000-plus page record that included clear evidence of felonies. He resigned before the Senate could vote to expel him (and became a lobbyist).

If that process was deemed correct and proper for a pair of miscreants like Packwood and Vitter, it should be sufficient for Franken, whose offenses are very minor by comparison. In the meantime, he need not depart the Senate unless he no longer feels he can serve his country and his constituents. He was duly elected to a second term, by a wide margin, so the bar to his removal should be high — at least as high as for those whose proven offenses were far worse.

###

http://www.nationalmemo.com/franken-not-resign/

[WyLoochka]

1. Franken must not resign

He is being framed. You have to fight a frame job, not cave in to it.

This is a classic propaganda hit job that is taking advantage of a national hysteria out of which has grown the irrational demand that "you all must believe" every accuser.

You must even believe the ones who your own eyes and ears tell you are deliberately revising memories from long ago moments to fit the hysteria of the moment. You must believe the ones who are out-right lying as part of a political hit job. You must believe the cowards who accuse anonymously.

This is a bunch of BS. I don't have to believe what my eyes and ears tell me are lies (Tweeden and Menz) I don't have to believe people whose claims are so weak and who are so spineless they make them in secret.

Stand firm Senator Franken. It would be exceedingly harmful to all of us for you to be driven from office based on bald faced lies and anonymous distortions - "I was uncomfortable when that photo was taken years ago", "I didn't like that rehearsal kiss." "I thought the whole USO band of skitsters were such great fun to be around I went on at least 9 trips. I posted pics of those fun times with my skitser friends years after. I came to my senses only last month when Roger Stone and Sean Hannity convinced me to change my mind and say that I did not have fun after all" - what a bunch of crap.

One of the worst is the woman who said she was making an anonymous claim so that Menz would be believed. Menz's photo has no credibility whatsoever, her face registers nothing but a relaxed, everything is normal smile. So someone, without producing any evidence at all, steps in and makes an anonymous claim to bolster that bogus claim that had gone down in flames in less than 24 hours and I am to believe her? I'll believe her when I see her credibly and convincingly testify under oath.

[rainin]

2. Yes!! He IS being framed.

Democrats are piling on him and constantly equating him with a pedophile (Moore) and a rapist/pedophile/liar/sexual assaulter (Trump). There is no story here. This is payback -- that's all this is. What is wrong with democrats?

[rainin]

3. We should be all over this story

of this activitist who tried to float a false story to the NY Times. This should be a warning that the right is willing to do anything -- since they aren't bound by what's moral.