by Walter W. Murray, reporter
Elizabeth Warren is at it again.
The far-left Democratic senator from Massachusetts has a history of shamelessly using anything – even tragedy – as a marketing opportunity for herself and her campaign.
But this time, she may have gone too far, even for her own supporters.
She’s accused of exploiting the “Me Too” campaign, where women share their tales of sexual harassment and sexual assault.
Warren told “Meet the Press” on Sunday that she was harassed as a “baby law professor” by a faculty member with a reputation for dirty jokes.
“One day he asked me if I would stop by his office, which I didn’t think much about, and I did, and he slammed the door and lunged for me,” she said. “It was like a bad cartoon. He’s chasing me around the desk trying to get his hands on me and I kept saying, ‘You don’t want to do this. You don’t want to do this. I have little children at home. Please don’t do this.’”
She claimed that she was ready to “punch him right in the face.”
Warren said she told a friend about it, but “never said a word to anyone else.”
If the story is true, it’s beyond troubling.
And certainly, women around the country are still facing harassment in the workplace, often by men in positions of power over them such as Democratic donor Harvey Weinstein or former President Bill Clinton.
But in this case, Warren’s story might be every bit as true as her claim to American Indian ancestry.
Because Warren’s claim that she “never said a word to anyone else” is completely false. She actually DID speak out about it… very publicly… and told a completely different version of events at the time!
The Boston Globe connected the dots and found that she told a very similar tale at a 1997 memorial service for law professor Eugene Smith. Except back then, it wasn’t a harrowing tale of harassment or sexual assault, and she didn’t mention being ready to punch him in the face.
She was practically joking around about it!
The Globe, citing a memoir of the school written by John Mixon, said Warren’s recollection of the event was “lighthearted.”
Here’s something else she didn’t mention on “Meet the Press” on Sunday: Smith had mobility problems from polio, making any lunging or chasing far less threatening than it sounded when she told her “Me Too” story.
Mixon said Smith did indeed have something of a reputation, but it wasn’t the Weinstein-like figure the senator seemed to describe on Sunday.
“It was not unlike Gene to do that sort of thing,” Mixon told The Globe. “Everybody sort of regarded Gene as an anomaly. No one treated him as a predator.”
The Globe contacted Warren about the inconsistencies in her story. She said she spoke at his funeral because “it was 20 years later, and he didn’t have power over me anymore.”
Or maybe she just didn’t expect to get caught so quickly in the web of another tangled tale.
“This is classic Warren,” noted law professor William A. Jacobson of Legal Insurrection.
“There appears to be a kernel of truth – something happened with the old polio-stricken professor, but what Warren once viewed in a light-hearted almost-laughable manner now becomes a major part of her life and political narrative, because it’s politically opportune to portray it that way now.”
— Walter W. Murray is a reporter for The Horn News. He is an outspoken conservative and a survival expert, and is the author of “America’s Final Warning.”