NBC News correspondent Kasie Hunt, who also hosts her own program on MSNBC, raised some eyebrows when she made a distinction about a 2006 photo that shows Sen. Al Franken, D-Ala., with his hands on a woman’s breasts while she’s sleeping.
Talking about the photo on air Thursday, Hunt said Franken was “not actually groping but mock groping” the woman, a radio news anchor named Leeann Tweeden. Hunt made the distinction twice in a short period of time.
“She also published a picture that was given to her of her asleep with Sen. Franken mock groping her,” she said the second time.
The conservative websites Breitbart and NewsBusters said it appeared as though Hunt was offering cover for Franken.
The Washington Examiner has requested comment from MSNBC.
Earlier in the day, Tweeden, who now works for KABC in Los Angeles, accused Franken of inappropriate sexual behavior that included grabbing her breasts while she was asleep.
Tweeden wrote in a column online about a 2006 incident in which she was on a USO tour in the Middle East with Franken, who was not a senator at the time.
She said Franken had prepared a skit that included a scene in which the two of them kissed and that after demanding they rehearse it, he aggressively pressed his mouth to hers and then pushed his tongue into her mouth.
She also said that on the return trip home to the U.S., Franken also put his hands on her breasts while she was asleep.
Franken said in a statement that he did not recall the kissing scene and that, while not funny in hindsight, the photo with his hands on her breasts was meant to be a joke.
