Trump's closing pitch to Nebraska voters: Accused serial groper is a 'very good man'

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Donald Trump was in Nebraska on Sunday rallying support for his chosen candidate in the Republican gubernatorial primary there. And go figure, Trump’s man in Nebraska was recently reported to be a serial groper.

Eight different women, including a Republican state senator, have said Charles Herbster touched them inappropriately at public events. According to Trump, Herbster is “innocent,” and a “very good man” who’s been “maligned” with what Trump says are “despicable charges.” Trump himself has been accused of groping and worse by dozens of women.

Trump’s defense of Herbster was so heartfelt he even broke out a “sir” story.

“I defend people when I know they’re good,” Trump said. “A lot of people, they look at you and say: ‘You don’t have to do it, sir.’ I defend my friends.”

Herbster has insisted the allegations are a political ploy by outgoing Gov. Pete Ricketts, who has endorsed a rival primary candidate and placed himself squarely in a lineup of Republican men who’ve faced credible sexual misconduct allegations and triumphed.

“It’s a playbook from the past,” Herbster said on Steve Bannon’s podcast. “Look what they did to Clarence Thomas. Look what they did to Donald J. Trump. Look what they did to Brett M. Kavanaugh. Now, it’s Charles W. Herbster.”

”They” being women who objected to having been harassed or assaulted?

Republican State Sen. Julie Slama has confirmed to the Nebraska Examiner that Herbster reached up her skirt and touched her inappropriately at a 2019 event. A witness to that was also one of three who saw Herbster grope another woman’s buttocks at the same event. A total of six women describe Herbster using photo ops or hellos and goodbyes as an opportunity to grab—not graze or brush—their butts. Another woman says Herbster once cornered her and kissed her against her will.

”Being a conservative Republican woman in politics, you just expect to be treated with respect. To be treated in that way in a public event, in front of everyone, just to prove, I believe, that he could get away with it, and not having recourse, it’s terrifying,” one woman told the Examiner.

“I’m scared for any young women that he would be dealing with in the future. Don’t send your daughters to work for this guy,” she added.

In addition to his endorsement from fellow groper Trump, Herbster at one point hired former Trump campaign aide Corey Lewandowski to help run his campaign … until Lewandowski was accused of sexually harassing the wife of a major Republican donor. It’s almost like there’s a pattern with these guys.

And in addition to the Thomas-Trump-Kavanaugh list Herbster was so eager to associate himself with, Trump’s endorsements “include Herschel Walker, a U.S. Senate candidate in Georgia who has been accused of threatening the lives of two women, as well as Sean Parnell, who ended his U.S. Senate campaign in Pennsylvania last year amid domestic abuse allegations, and Roy Moore, a 2017 candidate for U.S. Senate in Alabama who was accused by two women of initiating unwanted sexual encounters when Moore was in his 30s and they were 16 and 14,” as The Washington Post summarizes.

Many Republican voters have decided that they just don’t care. “I don’t really think it matters. I don’t think there’s any body to it,” one Nebraska voter at the rally told the Post, while his wife agreed, “People are going to say whatever they’re going to say, no matter who it is.”

Today’s Republican Party: the party of coup attempts and repeatedly shrugging off sexual misconduct allegations.

Trump pick for Nebraska governor attacks woman who accused him of assault in new ad

Posted in Independent News