Platner’s campaign confirms he sent sexual texts to women while married
Graham Platner exchanged sexually explicit texts with multiple women while married to his wife, Amy Gertner, his campaign confirmed to POLITICO on Saturday, the latest scandal he has faced since launching his Maine Senate campaign last year.
In a statement, Gertner slammed a former friend for spreading “malicious gossip” in the wake of a Wall Street Journal report that she had informed her husband’s campaign of the texts in late August.
“I confided deeply personal details about my marriage to someone I considered a friend,” she said. “In the months since, I have had to watch as she spread malicious gossip to anyone who would take her call. I trusted this person with the most private chapter of our lives — the early days of our marriage before any campaign was on our mind — and I am deeply hurt by her betrayal and the invasion of our privacy.”
While Gertner did not name the friend in question, Genevieve McDonald, a former senior campaign staffer who shared a screenshot of her texts with Gertner with The New York Times, responded by telling POLITICO that “the Platner campaign confirmed these events occurred.”
Gertner, who is paid by the campaign as its volunteer coordinator, said the pair’s relationship is “stronger than ever before.”
“We did the hard work that marriage requires,” she said. “We went to counseling. We were honest with each other in ways that weren’t easy. And we came through it, not in spite of how much we’ve been through, but because of how much we love each other and the life we’ve built.”
Platner launched his upstart campaign last August. The oyster farmer almost immediately saw his stock soar, with glitzy profiles and endorsements from progressive standard bearers including Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. When Maine Gov. Janet Mills dropped out of the Senate primary in April, Platner became the presumptive Democratic nominee.
But his candidacy has been marred by a string of near-constant scandals.
In October, CNN reported that he’d advocated for using violence to effect social change and referred to himself as a “communist” in now-deleted Reddit posts. That same month, Platner revealed on a podcast that he had a tattoo resembling a Nazi Totenkopf. He expressed regret and then got the tattoo covered up, posting a video with the new one on social media last year.
“I know who Graham is,” Gertner said. “I know the man I married and the husband he has been to me on the best and the worst days of my life. That hasn’t changed, and it won’t.”
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), another high-profile Platner backer, reiterated his support in a post on X Saturday. The two will campaign together at an event in Maine next week.
“I am proud of @grahamformaine for having the character to stand up against the war in Iran, against genocide, and against an unfair & lopsided economy,” he wrote, reiterating his intent to stump alongside him next Friday. “I am proud of him for having a vision for a new deal for our time.”
Jessica Piper contributed to this report.
المصدر: Politico