Joe Conason: Why Franken Should Not Resign

[babylonsister]

http://www.nationalmemo.com/franken-not-resign/
Why Franken Should Not Resign
November 28, 2017
Joe Conason

snip//

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.

[underthematrix]

1. This morning I watched the first two hours of MorningJoe

and Elise Jordon lamented about how everyone was praising Sen Franken for his response to the groping allegations. She rolled her eyes and said even though he apologized for making his accusers feel uncomfortable he never admitted to the groping allegations. I responded with these tweets. One is about Franken. The second is about the Rose and Weinstein cases which are clearly about sexual harassment and the third is a suggestion to Elise Jordan about the larger conversation we need to have about sexual harassment in the workplace.

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

[OnDoutside]

2. Great response !

[underthematrix]

3. Thank you