Al Franken's Sex Assault Scandal – Senator Apologizes Amid Groping Allegations
Nov. 16 2017, Published 4:39 p.m. ET
Embattled Sen. Al Franken is apologizing after shocking allegations that he sexually assaulted and groped a radio news anchor as she slept!
“I respect women. I don't respect men who don't,” Franklin said in a prepared statement. “And the fact that my own actions have given people a good reason to doubt that makes me feel ashamed.”
Calls are growing for the democratic senator from Minn. to resign, after former Playboy model and current L.A. radio host Leeann Tweeden posted a lengthy essay online detailing an encounter she had with Franken back in 2006.
At the time, Franken, a former writer for Saturday Night Live, was on a USO tour with Tweeden to entertain the troops.
Tweeden explains that the comedian claimed he wrote a special sketch for them that involved kissing, and he insisted on practicing the puckering.
“We did the line leading up to the kiss and then he came at me, put his hand on the back of my head, mashed his lips against mine and aggressively stuck his tongue in my mouth,” Tweeden wrote. “I walked away. All I could think about was getting to a bathroom as fast as possible to rinse the taste of him out of my mouth.
“I felt disgusted and violated.”
Tweeden says the sicko didn’t stop there, and even grabbed her breasts while she was sleeping, smiling and posing for a camera picture to capture it all.
Today, Franken, 66, wasn’t as happy when forced to explain the photo.
“I don't know what was in my head when I took that picture, and it doesn't matter. There's no excuse,” he wrote in his apology letter. “I look at it now and I feel disgusted with myself. It isn't funny. It's completely inappropriate.
“It's obvious how Leeann would feel violated by that picture. And, what's more, I can see how millions of other women would feel violated by it—women who have had similar experiences in their own lives, women who fear having those experiences, women who look up to me, women who have counted on me.”
Fellow Senators on both sides of the aisle were quick to call for an ethics investigation, which Franken says he welcomes.
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“I am asking that an ethics investigation be undertaken, and I will gladly cooperate.”
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