This week, Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner was called to drop out of the race after allegations of sexual assault became public. Platner ultimately stepped down Thursday morning, following calls for accountability from many in and around the Democratic Party who had previously supported him — including notable figures such as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani. However, the aftermath of these allegations has also called attention to the numerous bipartisan issues around handling allegations of sexual assault — particularly when it comes to the ones leveled against President Donald Trump (including those from journalist and author E. Jean Carroll, who Trump was found liable for sexually assaulting and defaming in a 2023 civil case).
CNN Exchange Highlights Double Standards
An exchange between conservative commentator Scott Jennings and other journalists on CNN’s “News Night With Abby Phillip” brought the heart of that conversation to a head. It began when journalist Brad Palumbo leveled a question at Jennings: “When we have this serious corroborated allegation against [Platner] we have dozens of accusations against [Trump] — one of them was litigated, we have a court finding against him — isn’t that significant more weight behind accusations against Trump than there even is against [Platner], how can one be disqualifying and not both?”
“Well, I think the president would say there isn’t serious corroboration to these accusations,” Jennings replied, before adding, “And the person who accused him couldn’t even remember when it happened.” The other panelists were quick to remind Jennings (again) of the findings of the jury in Carroll’s case, also noting that one of the other accusers on the record was Trump’s ex-wife, Ivana and, once again, bringing up the “Access Hollywood” tape where Trump made his now infamous “grab them by the pussy” comment. “My view is this, if there is serious allegations or if there’s serious evidence or corroboration, everyone needs to take responsibility,” Jennings continued.
‘Corroboration’ as a Sexist Dog Whistle
Jennings’ dismissive reply ‘perpetuates a lie’ that is incredibly harmful to victims and survivors. One word that is continually coming up in this latest discourse is “corroboration” — which means an individual has independent proof beyond their own testimony. The word, however, does not legally apply in these situations, and does more work to cast doubt on victims and survivors who come forward about what they experienced, as Leigh Gilmore, professor emerita at Ohio State University and author of “The #MeToo Effect: What Happens When We Believe Women”, told HuffPost.
“One harm of this kind of punditry — and surely Scott Jennings knows better — is it perpetuates a lie about rape laws,” Gilmore explained. “‘Uncorroborated’ is a sexist dog whistle.” Using this terminology to refer to allegations is both literally inaccurate (because that is not how the law works) but is also “misleading because it invokes an outdated legal standard.” Notably, nearly every U.S. state has abolished previous corroboration requirements for rape, with a few exceptions in state codes. Gilmore notes that using the term “perpetuates the false impression that rape allegations uniquely require independent evidence to be credible, a burden not imposed on most other crimes.”
As Aya Gruber, a professor of law at the University of Colorado, previously noted in an op-ed for the Hill on the subject: “Corroboration accompanied other archaic, and now defunct, doctrines that rape victims be ‘chaste’ and resist ‘to the utmost’ and that judges instruct juries that rape is particularly easy to fabricate.”
Bipartisan Problem of Outdated Standards
That said, the nature of weighing claims from victims and survivors who come forward based on this outdated requirement remains a bipartisan problem: “It is important to use accurate language in every discussion of sexual violence. Jennifer Racicot has said Graham Platner raped her,” Gilmore said. “Other women with whom he had various kinds of relationships have used other language to describe controlling and abusive behavior.” “The allegation of rape removes the kind of act we are talking about from the gray area of consent,” she said. “She said no.”
Discrediting Victims: A Classic Rape Culture Tactic
Discrediting victims and survivors is straight out of the rape culture playbook. In the years since the #MeToo movement, there’s been a comparatively stronger understanding of the reality of what victims and survivors of sexual assault have to go through in order to be believed, supported and given justice. Jennings’ comments about “corroboration” — as well as arguing that certain issues with the accuser’s memory made her allegations less “serious” are right out of a classic playbook that works to discredit the victim and dismiss the seriousness of the harm done.
It should be noted here that it is actually very common for survivors or victims of assault to have challenges with their memory, as the Yale Sexual Harassment and Assault Response & Education (SHARE) center’s resources note: in moments of distress “memories may be encoded in a way that is fragmented, incomplete, and difficult to retrieve ... When it comes to bad experiences or trauma, your mind may be trying to help you by blocking some things out or with an attempt at ‘forgetting’ specific details. This can leave you feeling confused about the possible sequence of events, or with vague memories of only parts of what happened to you.”
Likewise, as Gilmore notes, the system itself is rife with flaws that help perpetrators evade accountability and keep victims and survivors from feeling safe enough to come forward: “We learned a tremendous amount about sexual violence during the #MeToo movement. We learned victims are often not taken seriously by police officers. The detectives fail to investigate allegations of rape. And that district attorneys are reluctant to bring cases they don’t think they can win.” “When the climate around women is so negatively charged, and the standards of criminal sexual behavior are lenient, victims have great difficulty gaining any kind of justice,” Gilmore said.
Powerful Men Shielded by Other Powerful Men
And, ultimately, there’s a painful reality behind comments such as Jennings’ and how they reflect the broader conversation around who gets justice and who is eventually held accountable. As Gilmore notes: “There have been enough high profile cases for people to understand that powerful men are often given breaks by other powerful men. That’s one lesson of the Epstein files: that women are considered as less than the men who abuse them. Less deserving of basic consideration of their personhood. Less deserving of justice when they are abused than the men who abuse them.” “We have been trained to care about men’s reputations, careers and feelings and to rank all of them over women’s rights to go about their lives without being abused,” she said.
Need help? Visit RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Online Hotline or the National Sexual Violence Resource Center’s website.
