“Over 20 yrs you took the Clintons’ endorsements, money, and seat. Hypocrite. Interesting strategy for 2020 primaries. Best of luck," Philippe Reines tweeted. | Drew Angerer/Getty Images Ex- Clinton aide Reines blasts Gillibrand as a 'hypocrite'

A former aide to Hillary Clinton attacked Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand as a “hypocrite” late Thursday night over comments the lawmaker made to The New York Times that former President Bill Clinton should have resigned during the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

“Ken Starr spent $70 million on a consensual blowjob. Senate voted to keep POTUS WJC. But not enough for you @SenGillibrand?” Philippe Reines, an adviser to Hillary Clinton during her tenure in the Senate, at the State Department and during last year’s campaign, wrote on Twitter. “Over 20 yrs you took the Clintons’ endorsements, money, and seat. Hypocrite. Interesting strategy for 2020 primaries. Best of luck.”


Included in Reines’ online post was a link to the Times story, in which Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) said it would have been the “appropriate response” for Bill Clinton to resign in response to revelations that he had a sexual relationship with a White House intern, Lewinsky, while he was president. Gillibrand couched her statement to the Times by saying Clinton’s scandal occurred in a different era and that it would have played out much differently had it happened today.

A spokesman for Gillibrand emphasized that point in a follow-up with the Times. Gillibrand’s office did not immediately return a request for a comment on Reines’ online attack.

Gillibrand’s answers on the subject of inappropriate sexual behavior in politics come as the issue has come to the forefront not just in Washington, but around the country, as a growing list of men in the entertainment industry have been forced to answer for a range of accusations of sexual harassment and assault.

In the political realm, Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore has struggled over the last week to convincingly refute allegations that he sexually assaulted teenage girls as young as 14 when he was a district attorney in his 30s. Likewise, Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) on Thursday issued an apology in response to an accusation, accompanied by photographic evidence, that he groped broadcaster Leeann Tweeden while she was sleeping during a 2006 USO tour. She also accused Franken of forcibly kissing her.

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Beyond the Lewinsky scandal, Bill Clinton has been accused by multiple women of inappropriate sexual misconduct, including rape, although the former president has denied all the allegations. Trump, too, has been accused of sexual assault by as many as 16 different women and was recorded on the infamous “Access Hollywood” tapes in 2005 bragging about how his celebrity status allowed him to sexually assault women without consequence.

Trump has denied the accusations of sexual misconduct and, in response to The Washington Post’s publication of the “Access Hollywood” recording, chalked up his comments to “locker room talk” that he had never acted on.

Gillibrand was appointed to the Senate in 2009 by then-New York Gov. David Paterson, who picked Gillibrand to fill the seat left vacant by Hillary Clinton, who had been nominated to serve as secretary of state.

