Iowa Democrat Accused of Sexual Misconduct in Police Report

Mike Franken is the Democrat’s nominee in the long-shot bid to unseat senior U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa).

Despite the formidable challenge before him, Franken outraised Grassley in the most recent fundraising period, igniting speculation that the race may be more competitive than observers thought.

Franken, a retired Navy vice admiral, is one of the few Democrats who could conceivably prevail in the culturally conservative Hawkeye State.

However, the Navy man’s former campaign manager, Kimberley Strope-Boggus, may have dropped a grenade on his political ambitions when she accused him of sexual misconduct.

Politico further reports:

Then the conservative Iowa Field Report published an April report his former campaign manager filed with Des Moines police, alleging that Franken kissed her without consent. The woman who filed the report told police that Franken has kissed other women and had what she called “1950s interactions” with them, but did not describe the behavior as sexual or aggressive.

Franken denies the incident, which did not result in charges, and says he had never before been accused of unwanted advances on women. The retired Navy vice admiral said in an interview that people in his state have already moved on.

Yet he’s not letting the timing go unnoticed. While describing himself as an advocate for accountability, Franken pointed a finger at Republicans for the “desperate move” of publishing the report in “a Republican paper funded by Chuck Grassley, funded by the Republicans.”

“I am an active supporter of any effort to uncover and disclose assaults of any matter. But this one didn’t happen,” Franken said. “I’m just so disappointed that anything negative has come up about this. Because we’re on all eight cylinders. We’re cruising along … that was just an oddity. That’s no longer part of the picture.”

Per the police report, Franken was attempting to entice his ex-campaign manager, Strope-Boggus, to rejoin his team when they met for drinks.

At a certain point, the Democratic Senate nominee allegedly “grabbed the collar of the vest she was wearing and kissed her on her mouth” before she could “pull away.”

But it gets worse, according to Hot Air’s John Sexton, who explained that Strope-Boggus is a lesbian and married to a woman, as one would expect. Franken would have undoubtedly known this, having spent time with the Strope-Boggus family, Sexton notes.

Other details in the report were later corroborated in a Twitter thread by Strope-Boggus’ wife, Becky. However, her tweets were later deleted after Franken’s lawyers contacted Ms. Strope-Boggus’ lawyers.

FiveThirtyEight’s weighted polling average currently shows Grassley with a 7.3% lead over Franken.

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