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FIRST ON FOX: A top Senate Republican accused both The New York Times and high-level Senate Democrats of working together to delay publishing allegations against Maine Senate Democratic candidate Graham Platner until they could do maximum damage.
Stories and allegations against Platner have been piling up for nearly a year, inflicting incremental damage to his candidacy with each report published.
It started with the unearthed footage of him dancing intoxicated, sporting a tattoo of Nazi iconography on his chest last Fall, and culminated this week in a bombshell report that Platner allegedly raped his ex-girlfriend, Jenny Racicot. But it was a story from The New York Times in June that sowed deep doubts among Democrats in Washington, D.C., about his candidacy.
NEW YORK TIMES UNDER SCRUTINY OVER GRAHAM PLATNER COVERAGE AS ACCUSERS SPEAK OUT AGAINST PAPER
Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., who chairs Senate the Republicans’ campaign apparatus, the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), accused Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and the media outlet of working together to sit on that bombshell story against Platner to buy time to replace him.
“We should have seen this information long ago,” Scott said. “But what they’ve done is they’ve made a decision to keep him in the race as long as possible so that they had more time to make the necessary change to try to hold onto that power and, frankly, gain power in Maine.”
“Whether or not Chuck Schumer wanted this candidate or not, the fact of the matter is the Democratic Party decided that this was the hill they were all willing to die on,” he continued.
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Scott was referring to The Times report in which multiple women that Platner had relationships with, including Racicot, alleged that he knew about his Nazi tattoo well before reports surfaced that he denied, that he displayed “unsettling behavior” with women and was an intimidating presence with flashes of violence.
The Times denied Scott’s claims.
“The Senator’s speculation is flatly untrue,” Times spokesperson Charlie Stadtlander told Fox News Digital.
That same story sparks an emergency meeting with Democratic high command, Platner’s top supporters in the Senate and the Chair of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC), Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., to determine if more damning information was set to come out.
SANDERS BREAKS SILENCE ON PLATNER, CALLS ON SCANDAL-PLAGUED PROGRESSIVE TO ‘STEP ASIDE’
A source familiar told Fox News Digital that the DSCC “had no involvement” in the story. Schumer did not respond to a request for comment.
Still, Scott contended that the story and alleged collusion were “critical pieces of the puzzle,” particularly in the aftermath of Platner’s latest scandal that has seen his entire base of support among Democratic lawmakers and organizations virtually melt away overnight.
And, he charged that their sudden dismissal of Platner was indicative of their desire to beat Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, to regain power in the upper chamber after months of accepting allegation after allegation.
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“Those allegations and realities have been real and true the entire time that Democrats knew it,” Scott said. “And what makes it worse is that you say they’re all lining up to get away from him now, but they all lined up to support him earlier.”
“And what that tells me is that their primary objective is power over principle, and politics over policy,” he continued. “They are more interested in stealing the power so they can control the public.”
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