ASSOCIATED PRESS Democrat Al Franken resigned from the U.S. Senate in 2018 after multiple women accused him of sexual misconduct.

In a New Yorker profile published Monday, Al Franken said he “absolutely” regrets resigning from the U.S. Senate last year after his fellow Democrats pressured him to do so in response to several sexual misconduct allegations. The former Minnesota lawmaker told The New Yorker’s Jane Mayer that he now wishes he had appeared before a Senate Ethics Committee hearing about the accusations, as he had requested, instead of resigning. The 68-year-old former “Saturday Night Live” cast member told Mayer that he regrets having made some women uncomfortable, but pushed back on how his actions were characterized by his eight accusers. “The idea that anybody who accuses someone of something is always right ― that’s not the case,” Franken said. “That isn’t reality.” Franken, who assumed office in 2009, announced his intention to resign on Dec. 7, 2017, a day after Politico and The Atlantic published allegations from two separate women accusing him of sexual misconduct. He was already facing accusations from six other women at the time. Mayer investigated the claims, which include forcible kissing and groping, and laid out the findings in her nearly 13,000-word article. ″Almost NOTHING His Main Accuser Said checks out,” Mayer tweeted Monday, referring to Leeann Tweeden, a conservative talk-radio host who in November 2017 became the first woman to publicly accuse Franken of sexual misconduct. “Sometimes the first draft of history is wrong ― especially when no one fact checks it,” Mayer wrote on Twitter.

Sometimes the first draft of history is wrong- especially when no one fact checks it. https://t.co/W9UmYJ9o7n — Jane Mayer (@JaneMayerNYer) July 22, 2019