White House on sex assault allegations: 'Franken has admitted wrongdoing and the president hasn’t'

Gregory Korte | USA TODAY

Show Caption Hide Caption WH: 'Big distinction' in Trump, Franken cases White House spokesman Sarah Sanders insists there's "a very big distinction" between the sexual assault allegations against President Trump and Democratic Sen. Al Franken, saying, 'Franken has admitted wrongdoing and the president hasn't.' (Nov. 17)

WASHINGTON — The White House defended President Trump's attack on Sen. Al Franken's sexual misconduct on Friday by saying the allegations against Franken were very different from accusations against Trump.

"Specifically, Sen. Franken has admitted wrongdoing and the president hasn’t," White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Friday. "That's a very clear distinction."

Trump opened the floodgates to questions about sexual harassment on Friday after he excoriated the Minnesota Democrat for allegedly harassing a fellow entertainer in 2006, before his time in Congress.

Referring to the former Saturday Night Live writer as "Frankenstein," Trump tweeted Thursday night that the evidence against Franken is "really bad" and blasted him for hypocrisy in condemning other acts of sexual harassment. "The Al Frankenstien (sic) picture is really bad, speaks a thousand words," Trump tweeted. "Where do his hands go in pictures 2, 3, 4, 5 & 6 while she sleeps?"

Franken apologized the same day for posing for what he called a "completely inappropriate" photo that appeared to show him groping her breasts. His accuser, Los Angeles radio host Leeann Tweeden, said he also forcibly kissed her during the USO tour to entertain troops in the Middle East.

Yet Trump's critics noted that the president has his own history of sexual assault allegations, highlighted by a 2005 Access Hollywood tape that came to light last year in which Trump vividly describe how he sexually assaults women. "I just start kissing them. It's like a magnet. Just kiss. I don't even wait. And when you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything," including grabbing them by their genitals.

And just last month, the president insisted that accusations of sexual assault by Apprentice contestant Summer Zervos are "totally fake news. It's just fake... It's made-up stuff." Zervos, who has filed a sexual misconduct lawsuit against Trump, she said Trump kissed her, touched her breast and pressed his body against her without consent.

Trump latest remarks on Franken have put him again in the center of a growing national debate that has upended the entertainment industry and thrown the fate of a key Republican Senate seat into doubt.

More: Trump tweets broadside against Al Franken: 'Where do his hands go?'

More: Official White House position: Women who have accused Trump of sexual harassment are lying

Trump has also responded differently to allegations against Republicans and Democrats, remaining largely silent about Alabama candidate Roy Moore while at the same time attacking Franken, a Democrat.

Earlier Friday, White House Counselor Kellyanne Conway dismissed the Roy Moore story as old news.

“Al Franken was a new news story yesterday, and the president weighs in as he does on the news of the day,” Conway told Fox News. “The Roy Moore story is eight days old, and the president put out a statement on his Asia trip on that. And since then, our press secretary has spoken on behalf of the president by saying that he believes the people of Alabama will sort out what to do with Roy Moore and with that election.”

Sanders also punched back at Trump's election rival, after former secretary of State Hillary Clinton complained to American Urban Radio Networks that Trump has been "immune from the impact of what is a very credible set of accusations by women who were brave enough to come forward and tell their story."

Sanders' response: "I think Hillary Clinton probably should have dealt with some of her own issues before addressing this president."

Clinton's husband, President Bill Clinton, was impeached in 1998 after denying — and then admitting — a sexual relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.