Graham Platner, the Maine Democrat running to unseat Senator Susan Collins, is watching his campaign implode in real time — and it turns out his team's response to a sexting scandal involving 12 women on the app Kik was to threaten the whistleblower who exposed it.
Because nothing says "party of women" like sending your campaign strategist to intimidate a former female staffer into lying for you.
Here's how it all went down...Platner's campaign strategist, Morris Katz, who also works with New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, delivered a direct threat to former campaign political director Genevieve McDonald after the Wall Street Journal reached out for comment on the scandal. Katz demanded McDonald call the WSJ, retract her comments, tell them the reporting was inaccurate, and send him a recording of the call.
When she refused to lie, Katz sent her a text that read: "Just want to be clear on where we are right now. If the story goes in its current iteration we'll communicate directly on record, and by name, that Genevieve violated the personal trust of Amy and Graham and shared explicit falsehoods to sabotage the campaign."
That's not a campaign communications strategy. That's a mob shakedown with slightly better grammar.
McDonald, a former state representative who served as Platner's political director from August through October, took to Facebook to lay it all out. She wrote: "After WSJ reached out to the Platner campaign for comment, Morris Katz demanded that I call the WSJ, retract my comments, tell them their reporting was inaccurate and send him a recording of the call. When I refused to lie for the Platner campaign he sent this text."
She also revealed the campaign offered her $15,000 to sign a non-disclosure agreement. She declined. Good for her. A woman with principles.
McDonald's resignation letter stated that Platner's past statements "were not known to me when I agreed to join the campaign, and they are not words or values I can stand behind in a candidate." She also posted on Facebook: "This is seriously the dumbest timeline... We cannot be this painfully stupid."
Meanwhile, Katz took to social media on May 30 with a blistering post defending his boss: "It's no one's f---ing business what happened in Graham & Amy's marriage before he was ever a candidate for office. There should be no place in our politics for incompetent, opportunistic operatives who violate privacy, betray trust, and prioritize vengeance over decency."
Read that again. The man who literally threatened a woman to retract her story is lecturing about "decency." The man who offered $15,000 in hush money is outraged about people who "betray trust."
And let's not forget the details underneath the sexting itself. Platner was reportedly using Kik — an app so notorious for its association with predatory behavior that it's practically a punchline. His Reddit posts reportedly contained racist, antisemitic comments and homophobic slurs. He allegedly has an antisemitic tattoo on his chest that he's tried to explain away as "military history."
Both the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times published stories over the weekend corroborating the scandal. The Maine Wire captured McDonald's Facebook posts before they could be scrubbed.
Platner's wife Amy was trotted out for damage control, which is the political equivalent of waving a white flag while pretending you're still fighting.
This man wants to represent Maine in the United States Senate. He sexted 12 women on Kik, his team tried to buy a whistleblower's silence for $15,000, his strategist threatened her when she wouldn't play along, and his internet history reads like a case study in everything Democrats claim to oppose. If this guy had an R next to his name, he'd already be off the ballot and CNN would be running a three-part documentary about it.
