Kirsten Gillibrand: Al Franken ‘never denied the allegations to us as senators’

“As someone who has led these issues on ending sexual violence in the military, ending sexual assault on college campuses, changing the rules in Congress on harassment, I really just got to the point where I couldn’t remain silent,” Gillibrand, a former attorney, said after a day campaigning in Texas. “And I don’t think anyone should be blaming me or the women of the Senate for standing up for women who have been harassed, or have been demeaned, or have been treated poorly.”

Gillibrand, who announced her White House bid in January, was Franken’s first female colleague in the Senate to call on him to step aside. Franken resigned from Congress in December 2017 before he was officially replaced in January 2018 by now-incumbent Sen. Tina Smith, D-Minn.

The former comedian, who was first elected to the Senate in 2008, faced accusations by eight women, including one congressional staffer, of inappropriate behavior including groping and forcible kissing. He denied many of the claims made against him.

“Sen. Franken had every right to stay as long as he wanted, he could have stayed until his next election,” Gillibrand said when asked about her involvement. “But he never denied the allegations to us as senators. And he was asked by others to resign well before I did, and he chose not to.”

The decision has caused problems for the two-term senator, who similarly said former President Bill Clinton should have resigned over his affair with Monica Lewinsky, with voters and donors alike. She had previously enjoyed a cordial relationship with both Bill and Hillary Clinton after she succeeded Hillary Clinton in 2009 as the junior senator from New York when the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee was tapped to join the Obama administration as secretary of state.

Gillibrand’s comments come after reports her exploratory committee was touting her feminist credentials in a series of new advertisements.