Congressman Trent Franks, a Republican from Arizona, has suddenly announced his resignation over potential misconduct claims. The first Republican to do so and perhaps this helps knock Franken out of the news.
From our good friends at *Talking Points Memo
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(Cites linked in original at TPM. Liberal cootie protocols recommended.)
Franken (finally) knocked himself out of the news by resigning. I doubt we would hear much more about him regardless. This guy resigned before there was as much as a peep by the media, so I doubt it’s going to get much more play going forward. But we’ll see.
Roy Moore is still a “target rich environment”, though, and it looks like the GOP is going to have a tough time getting rid of him should he win the election next week. And if he does get seated in the Senate, it wouldn’t surprise me if his whack-o ideas get him more press then he would want, too.
I’ve seen on Twitter that he asked two female staffers to be a surrogate for his child.
I don’t believe everything on Twitter, but the source is a reporter for Politico.
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Show of hands? Who finds that less disturbing?
At the same time??? :eek:
Franks? Never heard of him. People in the Yiddish papers are upset he is leaving.
All I can think of is some weird amalgam of Trent Lot and Barney Frank[s]. But that’s probably wrong. 
Maybe he wanted twins.
Regards,
Shodan
IMO, he’s just in the wrong place at the wrong time. In a calmer time this would be seen as something odd but not much more than that.
The above assumes that he didn’t try to pressure these women in any way, but merely broached the subject.
Presumably one turned him down and then he asked the other.
His wife has fertility/miscarriage issues. (He did actually have kids via a surrogate.)
IMHO, that’s a completely inappropriate topic to ask your employees at any time.
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Current reports are indicating that the women believed he was offering money for him to impregnate them the old-fashioned way. He is apparently denying this, but if it’s true, that’s completely outside any reasonable bounds. (I expect that his immediate resignation means there are additional shoes which may drop on this story.)
Standard methods of artificial insemination typically require that the donor is smart enough to jack off.
Isn’t this the guy that has been calling for Robert Mueller to resign because of some supposed bias on Mueller’s part? If so then good riddance.
For me, the weirdest part of the Trent Franks story is that he offered the aide five million dollars to bear his child. Just how rich is this guy?
No question. Completely inappropriate. The position of authority makes it coercive in nature no matter how politely it was presented. And given who this person is, it is far from the most inappropriate stuff to come out of his mouth. Still way across the line.
But is asking to very very generously pay (yes he’s stinking rich) for an employee to serve as a surrogate sexual harassment?
Yes, if he stated to do it by way of intercourse it would be, but is it clear that the women are saying he explicitly said that or that they believe that is what he meant? The NYT version says of the employee who has come out about it:
Which reads to me like we know this guy is a creep so we are worried that must be what he means, rather than that he actually said it.
The guy is a creep, that’s pretty much already established fact.
So even if the guy could afford to pay that much for a surrogate, why would he?
Google search results suggest that a legitimate surrogacy costs perhaps $100,000. So why not go the legitimate route for a lot less money and no ethical issues?
Perhaps he’d found inspiration in Trump’s history of declining to pay for services rendered.
Maybe he was looking for a surrogate with benefits.
The best possible scenario is that he was offering a subordinate a bunch of money if she’d let someone put his semen in her body. It’s a pretty seriously creepy thing to ask your subordinate, and if it’s not sexual harassment, it’s sexual harassment’s fraternal twin.