Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand, Claire McCaskill to Donate Al Franken’s PAC Money

Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and Claire McCaskill (D-MO) will donate the money they received from colleague Sen. Al Franken’s (D-MN) political action committee following accusations that Franken groped a female journalist’s breasts and forced his tongue down her throat in 2006.

Gillibrand reportedly received $12,500 from Franken’s Midwest Values PAC, and McCaskill received $30,000 from the group, reports the Hill:

As elected officials, we should be held to the highest standards—not the lowest. https://t.co/d2kYIP2vKt

— Kirsten Gillibrand (@SenGillibrand) November 17, 2017

Gillibrand said Wednesday there is a “serious sexual harassment problem in Congress.”

“And too many congressional offices are not taking this problem seriously at all,” she added.

Glen Caplin, a senior adviser to Gillibrand, said she will donate her funds to Protect Our Defenders, a group that works to fight sexual assaults in the military. McCaskill will donate funds she received from Franken’s PAC to a Missouri-based nonprofit.

On Thursday, Gillibrand told the New York Times that former President Bill Clinton should have resigned after the Monica Lewinsky affair.

“Yes, I think that is the appropriate response,” Gillibrand, who took Hillary Clinton’s seat in the Senate, said when directly questioned about the former president.

“Things have changed today, and I think under those circumstances, there should be a very different reaction,” she added. “And I think in light of this conversation, we should have a very different conversation about President Trump and a very different conversation about allegations against him.”

As Breitbart News reported Wednesday, Gillibrand said if the citizens of Alabama elect former Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore to the U.S. Senate, she would “vote to expel him.”

“I think there will be an outcry of members of the Senate who do not want him to serve, even if elected, because pedophilia is a crime,” she told MSNBC. “It is disgusting. Someone who’s taken no responsibility for any of these allegations of criminal behavior is — they shouldn’t be a member of the U.S. Senate. I believe these survivors. I think most people do. And I think it’s important that he be held accountable. But hopefully, the people in his state will vote for someone else.”