• Former U.S. Sen. Al Franken, who resigned in late 2017 after multiple women accused him of unwanted touching or kissing, received a measure of redemption Monday with the release of a lengthy article in The New Yorker that questions the severity and circumstances of the allegations. In the article, seven current and former senators told reporter Jane Mayer that they regret calling for the Minnesota Democrat's resignation, among them former Sen. Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota and Sen. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois. Franken, in his first interview since leaving the Senate, said he regrets resigning: "Oh, yeah. Absolutely." The bulk of the magazine article takes up the accusation made by Leeann Tweeden, now a conservative media figure, who made the first allegation that led to Franken's downfall. In a photo that eventually doomed Franken, he can be seen reaching for her breasts while she is asleep while wearing a flak jacket aboard a military plane on the way home from a USO tour to entertain soldiers. Tweeden, who declined comment for the article, also alleged that Franken wrote a skit with her in mind in which she was forced to kiss him, saying that he gave her an ugly, unwanted open-mouth kiss during a "rehearsal." Although Franken had agreed to a Senate ethics investigation of his behavior, Democrats were battling in late 2017 for an Alabama Senate seat in which Roy Moore had been accused of serious sexual misconduct with underage girls. Mayer's piece implies that Democratic senators who forced out Franken had the Alabama special election on the mind.
• A Polish appeals court upheld a lower court's verdict in a slander case and ruled Monday that pro-democracy fighter and former president Lech Walesa must apologize to the leader of the country's right-wing ruling party. Law and Justice party leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski, one of Poland's most powerful politicians, sued Walesa for blaming him on social media for the 2010 plane crash in Smolensk, Russia that killed President Lech Kaczynski, Kaczynski's twin brother, and 95 others. In one of the disputed posts written during 2015-2017, Walesa alleged that Kaczynski was "guided by bravado" and during a phone conversation with his traveling brother pushed for the plane to land at the poorly equipped Smolensk airport despite heavy fog. Kaczynski blames the crash on Poland's government at the time, alleging it neglected the president's security. In December, the Gdansk Provincial Court ruled Walesa had made "heavy accusations" without evidence and ordered him to apologize to the 70-year-old Kaczynski on the radio, in a personal letter and other formats. Both men appealed. Walesa, 75, said he also would appeal Monday's decision to Poland's Supreme Court.
A Section on 07/23/2019