Army veteran accuses Franken of groping her during USO tour
An Army veteran is accusing Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) of inappropriately touching her during a USO tour in 2003 while she was deployed in Kuwait.
Stephanie Kemplin told CNN that Franken cupped her breast while she was taking a photo with him.
She told the network she met Franken when he was visiting troops on a USO tour and wanted to take a photo with him.
“When he put his arm around me, he groped my right breast. He kept his hand all the way over on my breast,” Kemplin said.
{mosads}”I’ve never had a man put their arm around me and then cup my breast. So he was holding my breast on the side.”
She said she remembers “clenching up.”
“And I remember thinking — is he going to move his hand? Was it an accident? Was he going to move his hand? He never moved his hand,” she said.
“It was long enough that he should have known if it was an accident. I’m very confident saying that.”
Kemplin said she moved her body before the photo was taken.
A spokesperson for Franken said in a statement that the Minnesota Democrat takes “thousands of photos and has met tens of thousands of people.”
“He has never intentionally engaged in this kind of conduct,” the spokesperson said. “He remains fully committed to cooperating with the ethics investigation.”
Franken has been accused by multiple women of sexual misconduct.
A Los Angeles broadcaster earlier this month said Franken kissed and groped her without her consent during a USO tour in 2006. Other women have come forward to allege Franken touched them inappropriately during photos.
Earlier this week, Franken said he would work to regain people’s trust following the allegations, adding “this will not happen again going forward.”
“I know I’m going to have to be much more conscious in these circumstances, much more careful, much more sensitive, and that this will not happen again going forward,” Franken told dozens of reporters outside of his Capitol Hill office.
“Again, it’s going to take a long time for me to regain people’s trust, but I hope that starting work today that I can start to do that,” he added.