The abrupt resignation of a top Trump aide over past claims of spousal abuse has predictably led to renewed attention on two senators who in the past have also faced abuse claims.
Just hours after White House Staff Secretary Rob Porter resigned, some started to compare the reports of abuse claimed by his two ex-wives to those involving Ohio Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown and Delaware Democratic Sen. Tom Carper.
Emails and tweets featuring stories about Carper and Brown crisscrossed Washington.
In Brown’s case, it was a Cleveland.com report from 2012 about how a Republican challenger to the Democrat raised an old divorce case in which Brown’s ex-wife claimed she was hit. He denied.
Sherrod Brown’s ex-wife “He refused to return to the car, pushed me up against the wall with his arms in order to pass and entered the house.” https://t.co/8jy6QmVAH0
— Jack Posobiec ?? (@JackPosobiec) February 8, 2018
The story cited a 1986 divorce and details that his ex-wife, now a political supporter, claimed Brown “intimidated, pushed, shoved and bullied” her on several occasions.
In the Carper case, he admitted in a 1998 interview with a local Delaware journalist that he slapped his wife once during a heated argument. In a Hill story circulating Washington, though, Carper denied another report that said he tried to hide the incident.
As long as Senate Democrats are focusing on wife-beating… @SenatorCarper is a wife-beater as well. Lied about to get elected. https://t.co/bGibaFm5Pi
Where is the outrage? https://t.co/tk6z3hcaAQ
— Steve Milloy (@JunkScience) February 8, 2018
“It was wrong. I regretted it then, and I still do today,” he said.
In his case, Porter rejected the charges but resigned so that it didn’t become a problem for Trump.
But his story made the evening news and front pages leading some outspoken Trump supporters, especially on Twitter, to ask “where is the outrage” over the past reports about the two senators.
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected]
