Sputnik's Lee Stranahan: Who is Karen Monahan? Who is she, and what are her political leanings?
Andrew Parker, partner at Parker Daniels Kibort Law Firm: Karen Monahan, for her entire adult life from the age of 21, has worked for progressive liberal causes and candidates consistently. She is a grassroots organizer. She is an award-winning community organizer. [She's] very highly respected in that community of supporting progressive ideas and causes. She, for the last 12 or 13 years, has been a senior organizing representative for the Sierra Club and continues to do that work today. She was a Wellstone Fellow — as you recall, [former US Senator] Paul Wellstone — immediately after he passed away, tragically, in that plane crash, she was one of the first Wellstone Fellows.
The Democratic Party, the liberal ideals that follow it, and in particular the progressive movement, Karen Monahan was involved in before progressive was progressive, has been her life. These are her people and her friends.— 𝙻𝚎𝚎 𝚂𝚝𝚛𝚊𝚗𝚊𝚑𝚊𝚗 (@stranahan) October 11, 2018
Sputnik's Garland Nixon: A number of people reported that Keith Ellison had called for an investigation with the House of Representatives. What's your position on that? Has there been an investigation? Is there an ongoing House ethics investigation, or any other investigation ongoing?
Andrew Parker: As far as Mr. Ellison calling for an investigation, when I saw that I chuckled. It's a classic, to come out when you're accused to say, ‘You know, I'm open to anything. Bring on an investigation. I want a House Ethics Committee investigation.' Now, this is someone who is leaving the House of Representatives [to run for Minnesota Attorney General]. He knows the process; they are not going to do a House ethics investigation, because he's going to be out of office, perhaps, before any investigation would start and certainly before it would end. And once he's out [of Congress], the investigation would end. So he knows it's not going to happen.
Ms. Monahan welcomes that investigation or any other investigation and will cooperate fully with it as she has to date.
Sputnik's Garland Nixon: Have you requested an investigation that's been approved or turned down? What's the status of the possibility of an investigation?
Andrew Parker: You're aware that Mr. Ellison being the deputy chair of the Democratic National Committee — you would think the Democrats nationally would do a thorough investigation into their deputy, their vice chair. They did not. They kicked this matter to the state Democratic Party, who hired their own lawyer, a law firm they use regularly, and I believe is on retainer with them, to do an investigation into their own sacred source, Keith Ellison, who is a celebrity in the Democratic Party.
That investigation concluded with a statement, ‘Ah, it's unsubstantiated. We can't decide one way or the other. We're not saying he's innocent; we're not saying he's guilty.' Despite the fact Ms. Monahan provided to them substantial corroborative evidence, including witnesses who were interviewed and who corroborated her telling them about this physical abuse; including documentary evidence in which she wrote about it, and Mr. Ellison did not respond. He didn't say in private texts, ‘What are you talking about, Karen, that never happened.' Nothing like that, even though he had been responding to texts repeatedly throughout the time period.
In addition, she talked about this private, intimate subject with her medical providers. And as Amy Klobuchar, US senator from the state of Minnesota, has stated regarding the Kavanaugh matter, that if you talk about something like this with your medical providers, it has inherent reliability. That, of course, is not being said with respect to Karen Monahan.
Following the unsubstantiated finding, the state DFL [Democratic-Farmer-Labor] Party, trying to figure out what to do from there, and also to cover themselves, started to put this out to other law enforcement agencies around the state of Minnesota and different counties in a strange way. And none of them have picked up on this investigation yet.
To Ms. Monahan, this is not about some criminal investigation into it. She just wants to have her voice heard, which is why she is so active on Twitter and why people have so greatly rallied behind her in large part.
Sputnik's Lee Stranahan: Let's get some of the facts out of the way. Is anybody denying they [Ellison and Monahan] were in a relationship?
Andrew Parker: No.
Sputnik's Lee Stranahan: It's not possible to argue that — they were clearly in a relationship. Furthermore, I say this as somebody who is a former Democrat: This has got to be a huge betrayal to Ms. Monahan, not just on the part of the Democrats, but of course on the part of Keith Ellison as well.
I saw some of the texts that came out. It was very clear this was a case where after they broke up, Keith Ellison himself was talking — he wanted to get back together with Monahan. So this is not a case that she's some crazed stalker. Has Ellison come out and said those texts are false?
Andrew Parker: No. No one has said that. Your statement that this is not a quote-unquote bad break up, a jilted lover who's coming out against everyone she has lived her life with in the progressive movement. Unless you read the New York Times — if you read the New York Times, that's their storyline.
Sputnik's Lee Stranahan: It seems the first major TV coverage you got on this was Tucker Carlson, correct?
Andrew Parker: Yes. "Fox & Friends" and Tucker Carlson.
Sputnik's Lee Stranahan: I'm a Republican now, but I say this as a former Democrat. It seems to me the Democrats have sold out their principles. You cannot say, ‘Believe every woman. Believe every survivor. Believe women.' You cannot take the issue of violence against women seriously, which I do. This seems to me a fundamental betrayal of Democrat principles on this subject, and it's unfortunately something I've seen before. What's your client's take on that — is she feeling that way?
Andrew Parker: She really is. In addition to receiving a number of death threats, a number of vicious attacks, which are very hurtful to her. She sees this as selective support. It depends on who the alleged accuser is, and which team they are on: the blue team or the red team. It's very sad to see it. You're right about CNN and MSNBC and some of the left-leaning shows: They have been in touch initially, and then it fell aside.
Listen to the rest of the interview between Parker and Radio Sputnik's Fault Lines.