Al Franken is back in the news more than 18 months after he resigned from the Senate following a half-dozen allegations of sexual misconduct. And that means that Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, his onetime friend who was the first Democratic colleague to call for him to step down, is back in the news too.
The two have been intertwined ever since, as Mr. Franken’s supporters and donors have blamed Ms. Gillibrand for his abrupt political demise and Ms. Gillibrand’s backers have expressed bewilderment that, somehow, a woman has been held responsible for a man’s alleged transgressions (Mr. Franken, a senator from Minnesota, was accused of unwanted touching and advances).
The spark for the latest episode: Mr. Franken telling The New Yorker, in some of his first public comments since his resignation, that he “absolutely” regretted his decision to step down rather than fight the charges.
But Ms. Gillibrand, who has predicated her presidential campaign on being an unyielding advocate for women, expressed no regrets on Monday.
“There is no prize for someone who tries to hold accountable a powerful man who is good at his day job,” she said at a town-hall event hosted by Mic and Bustle Digital Group in New York. “But we should have the courage to do it anyway.”
On the campaign trail, Ms. Gillibrand, who has staked much of her bid on her feminist credentials, has faced periodic yet persistent questions over her decision to call for Mr. Franken to step down, starting with her first trip to Iowa in January. She has consistently said that while the decision to resign was Mr. Franken’s alone to make, the only decision she faced was whether or not to “remain silent.”
Some prominent Democratic donors have refused to back her campaign, arguing that Ms. Gillibrand was more interested in scoring political points than determining the proper response to Mr. Franken.
In an interview in January, Ms. Gillibrand said of Mr. Franken, “If he wanted to stick it out for a six-month ethics investigation, God bless him; if he wanted to sue every woman who made an allegation against him, God bless him — those are his decisions. My decision was really simple. I was either going to stay silent and carry water for something I didn’t believe in or I was going to say what I believed: that it’s not O.K.”
Ms. Gillibrand was hardly alone in arguing Mr. Franken should step down, and her news release calling for his resignation came just minutes before similar calls from her colleagues. By the time Mr. Franken had announced his resignation in December 2017, three dozen Democratic senators — including fellow 2020 presidential candidates Michael Bennet, Cory Booker, Kamala Harris, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren — had called for him to step aside. The tipping point appeared to be an allegation from a former congressional aide of an unwanted advance by Mr. Franken.
Ms. Gillibrand on Monday cited a “double standard,” noting that female senators were pressed for comment about Mr. Franken far more frequently than their male colleagues. “Who is being held accountable for Al Franken’s decision to resign? Women senators, including me. It’s outrageous. It’s absurd,” she said.
Ms. Gillibrand has argued that Senator Doug Jones, a Democrat, would not have won a special election in Alabama if Mr. Franken had not stepped aside and provided the party with a clear message against the Republican, Roy S. Moore, a state jurist accused of sexually assaulting teenage girls. Others in her party, including Chuck Schumer, the Senate minority leader who nudged Mr. Franken out of the Senate, voiced similar concerns.
In the New Yorker piece, Mr. Franken alleges that Mr. Schumer forced his resignation, saying that if he remained in the Senate, he could be censured and stripped of his posts on committees. A representative for Mr. Schumer did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The magazine quoted seven current and former Democratic senators who had demanded Mr. Franken’s resignation as saying that they regretted the decision.
Mr. Franken had appeared unhappy with this choice in real time. “There is some irony in the fact that I am leaving while a man who has bragged on tape about his history of sexual assault sits in the Oval Office,” he said in his farewell speech.
In recent months, Mr. Franken has gingerly waded back into public life, after sinking into what he called a clinical depression. “I’m angry at my colleagues who did this. I think they were just trying to get past one bad news cycle,” he told The New Yorker.
His resignation — and Ms. Gillibrand’s role — has divided Democrats, with some activists and donors, including the billionaire investor George Soros, blaming Ms. Gillibrand for costing the party a rising star who was able to effectively take on President Trump.
Wealthy contributors continue to refer to Mr. Franken as a factor in Ms. Gillibrand’s inability to raise money and her lack of traction in the polls.
Ms. Gillibrand remains incredulous. “Blaming a woman for the actions of a man: I don’t believe in it, ” she said at her event on Monday. “I don’t think it’s right.”
The latest flare-up with Mr. Franken broke as Ms. Gillibrand prepared to take a victory lap on an issue that’s been a centerpiece of her political career: securing permanent funding for the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund, established to aid first responders and those who became ill following the terrorist attacks.