Smearing Keith Ellison: When MeToo Collides with Political Bias

Ever since ex-girlfriend Karen Monahan started firing abuse allegations against Congressman Keith Ellison, Republicans and their media-friendlies have been on high alert. For years they’ve been trying in vain to find dirt that could stick to this Black Muslim Progressive. And now that Ellison is running for the office of Minnesota Attorney General, they’re getting ready to tear him down for good.

Now that the MeToo Movement is in full swing, they’ve decided to misuse and manipulate Monahan’s accusations in their campaign to smear Ellison.

Wait. Am I the only one here who thinks such character attacks on him are too absurdly hypocritical to be true? I’m beginning to wonder…

After all, Republicans were so obsessed with fair play, due process, and credible evidence during the Kavanaugh hearings you’d think they might have extended the same standards to Ellison’s situation. Not so. Remember, Ellison is the enemy. He belongs to the DFL — not the Republican — Party. So he’s never going to get the same justice or benefit of the doubt that the Friends of the GOP will get.

Republicans have already decided he’s guilty of something. If he isn’t, they’re going to find something. Or make up something. As long as the mud in the mudslinging is slamming the Democrat, the Republicans are okay with it.

Game on. So now it’s perfectly all right for Karen Monahan, Ellison’s embittered ex, to hurl all kinds of unsubstantiated charges against him. Oh, Monahan says she has proof. She says she has an incriminating video of him yelling at her and dragging her off a bed. Or, is it TRYING to drag her off a bed and not really succeeding? Never mind. We’re not at the Kavanaugh hearings anymore. But Republicans would have believed HER accusations without any questioning, without any proof, anyway.

So far, though, her evidence has been MIA. At first she refused to show this video to anyone — not even to investigators or law enforcement — because (she says) she couldn’t locate it. Then after she did find it, she didn’t want to show it because she didn’t want to “relive the trauma.” Or was it, she didn’t feel she should be obligated to provide proof because people should believe her without any proof? Whatever. MeToo, Republicans, and their Pro-GOP media all seem fine with her self-serving excuses.

We have to believe Karen Monahan because she’s a woman, and women don’t lie.

Uh-huh. Too bad the Republican Senators didn’t extend the same courtesy and benefit of the doubt to Professor Christine Ford when she accused Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault. But Kavanaugh worked at Bush’s Republican White House, Republican Trump nominated him, and he had definite Republican sensibilities with Republican bias. Wall-to-wall Republicans mean WINNING!!!

Latest Republican Game Plan:
DIRT+ACCUSATIONS= WINNING.
That’s why Republican Doug Wardlow, Ellison’s opponent in the MN. AG race, has gotten busy sending out anti-Islamic fundraising mailers. That’s also why The Minneapolis Star Tribune, along with pro-GOP Alpha News, and the ubiquitous FOX NOOZ are scrambling to keep Monahan’s allegations against Ellison in the public eye.

Never mind that Monahan has delivered one of the most inconsistent and questionable accounts of “abuse” MeToo has ever supported. Never mind that Ellison has repeatedly denied any mistreatment of her or his ex-wife. Forget all about his ex-wife’s declarations that he’s never abused her. Ignore his request for a formal Congressional hearing to clear his good name. The GOP machine doesn’t want him to be the latest Democrat in the Attorney General’s office — and they’re doing whatever it will take to defeat him in the upcoming election. Bring on the Trumpropaganda!

Latest case in point? Unsealing the divorce file of Keith and Kim Ellison.

And please don’t tell me this tactic is NOT a partisan one. It is. It is entirely politically motivated. Ellison’s opposition, with the help of The Minneapolis Star Tribune and Alpha News, believed he’d been lying about his abusive behavior all along. So they tried to get the Courts to unseal personal, private information about his divorce to prove his dishonesty. (Can Sean Hannity and FOX NOOZ be far behind?)

FYI, before you read about the big reveal, here’s some background information that might enhance this discovery process.

Ellison filed for divorce in October, 2011, and his marriage was subsequently dissolved in May, 2012. In September, 2012, records of this divorce file were sealed. Why? Because it’s legal and it’s possible to do so in this state.

Now usually a divorce file remains public, but if both parties agree and no one objects, it can be sealed. That’s what happened with the Ellisons and their decision to keep their private lives private. But The Strib decided that its staff, along with its readers, had a fundamental right to know that superseded the privacy rights of the Ellison family.

So did Leita Walker and Shannon Jankowski, the newspaper’s attorneys. They responded to Ellison’s objections by using this convoluted right-to-invade-the-privacy-of-the-individual response (from page 10A of The St. Paul Pioneer Press on Wednesday, October 17, 2018):

“To the extent the court’s file contains newsworthy information — and that is a judgement to be made by journalists, not judges — the public deserves to know now, while Congressman Ellison and his ex-wife have time to respond and while voters (at least those who haven’t already submitted absentee ballots) have time to thoughtfully weigh the information before heading to the polls.”

Since when does any publication exist to provide a public service for voters so they can “thoughtfully weigh the information” when no one knows what the information is or if it really exists? If this had been a “Law & Order" episode, Strib et al. wouldn’t have been able to even get a search warrant. Then some nondescript old actor playing the judge would have reprimanded the cops for trying to involve him in “another fishing expedition.”

Of course, that TV show doesn’t usually highlight much internecine political bias or GOP v. Dem warfare. Not on the level of this Minnesota Midterm, anyway. Political partisanship and prejudice sure are alive and well in this race.

No, I’m not saying the judiciary unfairly attacked the Democratic candidate running for Attorney General. What I am saying is this:
If Ellison had been the Republican candidate running for this office, the judicial decision-makers here would have been a whole lot more understanding and compassionate — even receptive to his reasonable requests. They would have gotten a lot more creative in their attempts to keep his file sealed, too.

Unlike Ellison and his family, both the Referee and Judge involved in this case had several options they decided NOT to use.

They could have found a way to recuse themselves from rendering a judgement. They could have dismissed the case. They could have ordered the divorce record unsealed, but with prejudice and a warning to the media about the privacy rights of the individual. Then too, they could have honored the request to not reveal ALL the confidential information. Or, at least delay the unsealing until the Ellisons had time to redact “confidential information” from certain documents in the file. In the end, however, their divorce record got unsealed for all to see, thanks to two decision-makers with unmistakable political bias.

Take a look at Jason T. Hutchison, the Hennepin County Family Court Referee, who okayed the October 17th unsealing. He might not have overtly advertised his political bent, but it became pretty evident in his decision.

Hutchison declared the concerns of the Ellisons “vague and speculative.” He decided their privacy concerns were no different from those of any other divorced couple. In other words, Who do you think you are? Why do you assume you have special privileges that other divorced people do not? Well, I’m not going to treat you any differently than anybody else. Get over yourselves.

Not only did Hutchison dismiss concerns the Ellisons had about using their records “for an improper purpose,” he sided with the rights of corporate media, not with those of the individual. How very Republican of you, Ref, to uphold the letter, but not the spirit, of the law in such a heated election year.

Let’s not forget the intervention that came from the Minnesota State Court of Appeals, either.

When the Ellisons appealed Hutchison’s decision, they asked for time to redact sensitive, confidential information that related to personal health and finances. Judge Renee Worke denied their request. Why?

Maybe because she had been appointed by two Republican — not Democratic — governors. She was appointed to the District Court in 1996 by then Governor Arne Carlson — a Republican. Then in 2005, she was appointed to the Minnesota Court of Appeals by then Governor Tim Pawlenty — another Republican. That information, combined with her show-no-mercy interpretation that also favored the letter, not the spirit, of the law, made her Republican leanings pretty obvious.

She may not have had a GOP vanity plate on her car or a tee-shirt decorated with elephants in her gym bag, but Worke was judging like a good little Republican.

NOW FOR THE BIG REVEAL.

Just what was in the divorce record of Keith Ellison and ex-wife Kim? Not what the Republicans thought. Not what a lot of people might have thought.

Yes, their marriage ended in divorce because of domestic abuse — but not because Keith Ellison had abused his wife. Turns out, his wife had been abusing him — a humiliating, embarrassing, and painful experience (and admission) for both parties.

In fact, theirs was a “storybook marriage” until Kim became afflicted with multiple sclerosis and depression. Although she’d never had a history of physical violence against him, she soon began hitting, biting and scratching her husband. No doubt her illness took its toll on her marriage as well as her health.

That was why Ellison didn’t want their divorce file to get unsealed: he wanted to spare his ex-wife embarrassment and humiliation over her own behaviors. Also, there was personal information about her ever-changing ability to work, loss of healthcare insurance, and spousal maintenance that she — along with her ex-husband — weren’t too eager to remember and relive again.

Because the courts have unsealed their private pain, Kim Ellison and her ex-husband have been forced to relive their personal trauma in the public eye.

So what did their divorce file really reveal? It showed that U.S. Representative Keith Ellison was — and still is — a good man. It showed how much integrity he really had. It showed that he faced tragedy and hardship in his personal life but chose not to publicly complain about it. His character was revealed, not by what was documented in his divorce file, but by what he actually said and did(or didn’t say or do) in real time — before and after his divorce. Although he was the victim of domestic abuse, he never publicly said anything disparaging about Kim when she was his wife or ex-wife. Furthermore, he has yet to publicly say anything bad about his ex-girlfriend, either. Although Monahan’s allegations have wreaked havoc on his life and might keep him from winning an important election, his response is one of dignified tolerance, and not anger. He doesn’t just talk about the better angels of our nature, he’s truly touched by them.

What else can you say about a guy who would still show up to help accuser Karen Monahan when her car ran out of gas?

Well, not much if you’re a Republican. Notice how strangely silent they’ve been since his divorce file got unsealed? Now that there’s evidence to show Ellison’s character is “steel true, blades straight,” they’re going to pretend his everyday heroism doesn’t exist. They’re certainly not going to admit that the same opponent they’ve been trying to smear is one of the good guys. That’s not how the game is played.

Their trick is to ignore the obvious good about Ellison and hype up anything negative they can imagine.

That means creating campaign ads to allege that Ellison’s marriage ended in domestic violence and divorce without ever stating that Ellison himself was the victim of the domestic abuse. That means unfairly attacking Ellison because he didn’t want to pay his ex-wife her “spousal maintenance.” Even now, opponent Wardlow is attacking Ellison with this misleading headline: “Ellison Did Not Pay Court-Ordered Health Insurance for his Wife, Despite Her Having a Pre-Existing Condition.”

Funny, when Democrats in the Senate tried to do their Constitutional duty (“advise and consent”) during the Kavanaugh hearings, Trump had a conniption. Later, after he was sworn in, Trump carried on about how the Democrats — and America — owed Kavanaugh and his family an apology for what they had put them through.

How about a collective apology from the Republicans, The Minneapolis Star Tribune, Alpha News, FOX NOOZ, and Karen Monahan for what they’ve been putting Keith Ellison and his family through?