Keith Ellison wins Democratic nomination for MN attorney general despite abuse allegations
Keith Ellison won the Minnesota primary election for attorney general and will go on to face Republican candidate Doug Wardlow despite allegations of abuse from an ex-girlfriend. Speaking to a group of supporters at the Nomad World Pub in Minneapolis, Ellison said of the allegations “We had a very unexpected event at the end of this campaign that happened… I want to assure you that it is not true and we are going to keep on fighting all the way,” according to the Minnesota Star-Tribune,
According to Vox, Ellison is being accused of domestic abuse by Karen Monahan whose son, Austin Monahan, alleged in a Facebook post that he saw video of Ellison abusing his mother. However, Karen Monahan has stated that she will not release the video because “it’s humiliating, it’s traumatizing, for everyone’s family involved, and for me… It sets the expectation for survivors of all kinds of forms of abuse, whether it be abuse toward women, abuse from police officers, abuse from other people in power, to have to be the ones, like I’m doing right now, to show and prove their stories. It’s feeding into that.”
Complicating verification of the allegations, Monahan’s answers to the question of where the tapes are have not been entirely forthcoming. She also released approximately 100 texts between herself and Ellison, but many of the messages are either cut off or seemingly taken out of context.
Ellison has been accused of abuse by an ex before. In 2006, Amy Alexander, a Democratic activist, alleged that Ellison came to her house, grabbed her, pushed her out of the way, and before leaving, broke her screen door. In addition to denying having ever been to her house, Ellison’s lawyers accused her of blackmail in a 2006 lawsuit.
In both of these cases, there has been no evidence or police reports to corroborate the women’s allegations. But it is notable that even in the era of #MeToo Ellison would escape these scandals virtually politically intact, handily winning a 5 way race for the Democratic nomination for Attorney General.