The two have been intertwined ever since, as Franken’s supporters and donors have blamed Gillibrand for his abrupt political demise and Gillibrand’s backers have expressed bewilderment that, somehow, a woman has been held responsible for a man’s alleged transgressions (Franken, a senator from Minnesota, was accused of unwanted touching and advances).
The spark for the latest episode: Franken telling The New Yorker, in some of his first public comments since his resignation, that he “absolutely” regretted his decision to step down rather than fight the charges.
But Gillibrand, who has predicated her presidential campaign on being an unyielding advocate for women, expressed no regrets on Monday.
“There is no prize for someone who tries to hold accountable a powerful man who is good at his day job,” she said at a town-hall event hosted by Mic and Bustle Digital Group in New York. “But we should have the courage to do it anyway.”
On the campaign trail, Gillibrand, who has staked much of her bid on her feminist credentials, has faced periodic yet persistent questions over her decision to call for Franken to step down, starting with her first trip to Iowa in January. She has consistently said that while the decision to resign was Franken’s alone to make, the only decision she faced was whether or not to “remain silent.”
Some prominent Democratic donors, including billionaire investor George Soros, have refused to back her campaign, arguing that Gillibrand was more interested in scoring political points than determining the proper response to Franken.
In an interview in January, Gillibrand said of Franken, “If he wanted to stick it out for a six-month ethics investigation, God bless him; if he wanted to sue every woman who made an allegation against him, God bless him — those are his decisions. My decision was really simple. I was either going to stay silent and carry water for something I didn’t believe in or I was going to say what I believed: that it’s not OK.”
Gillibrand was hardly alone in arguing Franken should step down, and her news release calling for his resignation came just minutes before similar calls from her colleagues. By the time Franken had announced his resignation in December 2017, three dozen Democratic senators — including fellow 2020 presidential candidates Michael Bennet, Cory Booker, Kamala Harris, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren — had called for him to step aside. The tipping point appeared to be an allegation from a former congressional aide of an unwanted advance by Franken.
Gillibrand on Monday cited a “double standard,” noting that female senators were pressed for comment about Franken far more frequently than their male colleagues. “Who is being held accountable for Al Franken’s decision to resign? Women senators, including me. It’s outrageous. It’s absurd,” she said.
Gillibrand has argued that Sen. Doug Jones, a Democrat, would not have won a special election in Alabama if Franken had not stepped aside and provided the party with a clear message against the Republican, Roy S. Moore, a state jurist accused of sexually assaulting teenage girls. Others in her party, including Chuck Schumer, the Senate minority leader who nudged Franken out of the Senate, voiced similar concerns.
In the New Yorker piece, Franken alleges that Schumer forced his resignation, saying that if he remained in the Senate, he could be censured and stripped of his posts on committees. A representative for Schumer did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The magazine quoted seven current and former Democratic senators who had demanded Franken’s resignation as saying that they regretted the decision.
Franken had appeared unhappy with this choice in real time. “There is some irony in the fact that I am leaving while a man who has bragged on tape about his history of sexual assault sits in the Oval Office,” he said in his farewell speech.
In recent months, Franken has gingerly waded back into public life, after sinking into what he called a clinical depression. “I’m angry at my colleagues who did this. I think they were just trying to get past one bad news cycle,” he told The New Yorker.
His resignation — and Gillibrand’s role — has divided Democrats, with some activists and donors, blaming Gillibrand for costing the party a rising star who was able to effectively take on President Donald Trump. Wealthy contributors continue to refer to Franken as a factor in Gillibrand’s inability to raise money for her campaign and her lack of traction in the polls.
Lou Frillman, a Democratic fundraiser in Minnesota who had supported Franken, said the party is now missing “a powerful voice” who had opposed the Trump administration at a moment of “national emergency.”
“I’m not going to get into a debate about any of this with Senator Gillibrand. All I’m going to say is it seems to me that the idea of proportionality was never considered,” Frillman said of the accusations against Franken.
But in response to Franken’s regrets over resigning, Frillman said, “You’ve got to blame yourself. He’s the one who pulled the plug.”
Gillibrand made a similar point at her event on Monday. “Blaming a woman for the actions of a man: I don’t know. I don’t believe in it,” she said. “I don’t think it’s right.”
The latest flare-up with Franken broke as Gillibrand prepared to take a victory lap on an issue that has been a centerpiece of her political career: securing permanent funding for the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund, established to aid first responders and those who became ill following the terrorist attacks.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.