{"id":262738,"date":"2026-06-11T02:38:19","date_gmt":"2026-06-11T02:38:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/262738\/"},"modified":"2026-06-11T02:38:19","modified_gmt":"2026-06-11T02:38:19","slug":"new-york-times-reporter-downplays-accusations-against-graham-platner-as-not-like-classic-abuse-allegations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/262738\/","title":{"rendered":"New York Times reporter downplays accusations against Graham Platner as \u2018not like classic abuse allegations\u2019\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

A New York Times journalist on Wednesday shockingly downplayed accusations leveled against Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner<\/a> by his ex-girlfriends as \u201cnot like classic abuse allegations.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jodi Kantor, who won a Pulitzer Prize for her reporting on Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein\u2019s sexual abuse, suggested Maine voters may have been willing to overlook the scandals plaguing Platner\u2019s campaign in Tuesday\u2019s primary<\/a> because they \u201care not classic MeToo accusations\u201d \u2013 before comparing them to President Trump\u2019s scandals.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re not about a boss and a young female employee being subjected to sexual advances. They were mostly made in the context of consensual relationships,\u201d Kantor said in a CNN interview<\/a> about the allegations against Platner reported in the Times.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"NewKantor argued the allegations against Platner were \u201cnot classic MeToo accusations.\u201d CNN<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are these, like, very sensational texts about sex. There are allegations from former girlfriends that are not \u2014 the way my colleagues reported them were not like classic abuse allegations,\u201d she argued.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were mostly like being his boyfriend gave me a view into him and I did not like what I saw. His character was scary. He had this Nazi tattoo. Et cetera.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Times reported Platner\u2019s alleged women-hating behavior<\/a> last week, citing three of the Maine Democrat\u2019s former girlfriends.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Lyndsay Fifield, who dated Platner from 2013 to 2015, told the outlet that the former oyster farmer and Marine veteran \u201cregularly grabbed her by the shoulders \u2014 sometimes hard enough to leave marks \u2014 and, on one occasion, yanked her out of a cab by her wrist after an argument when she wanted to stay in the car.\u201d<\/p>\n

During another incident, Fifield claimed, \u201che twisted her arm behind her back, shoved her into a bedroom and held the door closed from the other side so she couldn\u2019t get out, telling her to remain there until she was \u2018calm.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was one allegation of crossing a line physically,\u201d Kantor acknowledged, without detailing it, \u201cbut I think that means that these are pretty different accusations than, say, the one that \u2014 the ones that President Trump faced.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"DemocraticPlatner received a stunning 72% of the vote in Maine\u2019s Democratic Senate primary. AP Photo\/Robert F. Bukaty<\/p>\n

Kantor specifically referenced the infamous \u201cAccess Hollywood\u201d tape, which Trump dismissed as \u201clocker room talk.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it speaks to the kind of confusion of the long post MeToo moment in which, like, gender related accusations get bundled together,\u201d Kantor argued. \u201cBut they\u2019re actually very different.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Fifield has accused Times reporters Lisa Lerer and Katie Glueck of twisting her account<\/a> of Platner\u2019s alleged abuse into \u201ca gift\u201d for the Democrat\u2019s Senate campaign.\u00a0<\/p>\n

She claims the outlet spiked allegations of sexual assault made against Platner by other women and refused to include accounts from her friends corroborating her story.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Despite his scandals, Platner clinched the Democratic Senate nomination Tuesday night with about 72% support.<\/p>\n

Fifield did not immediately respond to The Post\u2019s request for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A New York Times journalist on Wednesday shockingly downplayed accusations leveled against Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":262739,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[72866,12827,5315,1208,9,11,10,980,87,3019,58],"class_list":["post-262738","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-metoo","tag-graham-platner","tag-maine","tag-media","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-new-york-times","tag-politics","tag-sexual-assault","tag-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262738","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=262738"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262738\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/262739"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=262738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=262738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=262738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}