Graham Platner responds to NYT report about ex-girlfriends detailing troubling accusations
Maine Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner denied the accusations from ex-girlfriends in a New York Times report that was released on Thursday.
Maine Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner denied the latest allegations against him on Thursday in his first national media interview since the scandal broke.
Prior to the interview, Graham Platner’s ex-girlfriends spoke out in a damning New York Times report, which chronicled new allegations of rape fantasies, heavy drinking and violent episodes. Among them included an alleged public encounter where Platner purportedly pulled an ex-girlfriend out of a taxi by her wrist during an altercation and pushed her into a bedroom holding the door shut.
Platner asserted that this and other allegations were "not true" and "did not" happen when asked on MS NOW's "All In with Chris Hayes."
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A new report from the New York Times accuses Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner of abusing an ex-girlfriend. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
"No, it did not," Platner said. "There are some allegations in this piece that I just want to be kind of unequivocal about are simply not true. Anything alleging physicality, anything alleging that I knew what my tattoo was, these are the statements of someone who’s politically motivated in this piece."
He continued, "There’s a lot about my struggling not being a good boyfriend, certainly self-medicating with alcohol. And I’ve been very up front since the beginning of this campaign that that was a pretty dark period of my life after I came back from my combat service. And that’s what that combat, that’s what that kind of life looks like. And so there are things in this that I absolutely will take responsibility for and have been speaking about openly for months now, but those serious allegations are just not true."
Graham Platner has faced backlash for a growing number of scandals. (Nicholas Ballasy/Fox News Digital)
"You did not grab her by the wrist. You did not put your hands on her shoulders. You did not push her into a room that you closed the door on. She's lying about that is what you’re saying?" Hayes asked.
"Yes. That is not true," Platner said.
In a statement to Fox News Digital after the story originally broke, Platner's campaign previously criticized one of the witnesses, Lyndsey Fifield, as a "lifelong GOP operative who’s dedicated her career to electing Republicans."
Platner has been involved in several controversies since launching his Senate campaign. Earlier this year, it was revealed that Platner had a now-covered-up tattoo that resembled a Nazi symbol. In the weeks that followed, he faced backlash over past Reddit comments with several controversial statements, including where he claimed a wounded soldier "didn’t deserve to live."
Graham Platner denied the allegations against him in his first national media interview since the scandal broke. (Libby Kenny/Sun Journal via AP)
Last week, reports also revealed that Platner had sent explicit messages to at least six women while he was married. The Wall Street Journal reported that Platner's wife, Amy Gertner, informed a campaign aide about the text exchanges shortly after he launched his Senate bid as staffers were assessing potential political liabilities. Gertner later released a video defending her husband and his campaign.
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Fox News' Charles Creitz, Leo Briceno and Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report.
