Fools rush in where Reason fears to tread!
In domestic battles such as this one, every participant has their own
story. And each participant has their own reasons for telling their
own version. Unless a victim is willing to take their story before a
judge or jury, I simply find it a sad, frustrating story.
Carl Jarvis
On 8/17/18, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Keith Ellison and Domestic Violence - So What's the Story?
By William Boardman, Reader Supported News
16 August 18
I have offered him restorative justice and for him to seek some sort of
help
for over a year and half. He would not take me up on it. I told him I have
not lost sight of his humanity and he deserved to take that time for
himself
to heal. I told him time and time again, I didn't want to share my story
publicly, it was more important for healing and restoration to occur with
this situation. I told him not only he deserved it, but his family and
constituents deserve it as well. For me, that alone would have been justice
as far as my situation. But no matter how many times I offered, he wouldn't
take me up on it.
- Karen Monahan, statement to Fox 9, Minneapolis, August 12, 2018
On August 11, Karen Monahan's 25-year-old son, Austin Aslam Monahan,
apparently acting on his own for unexplained motives, went public on
Facebook with a domestic violence accusation against Minnesota Congressman
Keith Ellison, a Democrat running for Minnesota Attorney General in a
five-way race. Austin Monahan's timing, three days before the Minnesota
primaries, suggests political motivation. He sent his missive to numerous
recipients, including Ellison, two of his opponents, and several news
media.
But the content of his lengthy post is fundamentally personal, not
political. And even though it immediately became a hot story, Ellison won
his primary on August 14 with 49% of the vote, 30 points ahead of his
second-place challenger. Minnesota hasn't elected a Republican attorney
general since 1955.
Keith Ellison and Karen Monahan ended their relationship in 2016, but not
without difficulty before and after. Most of the details remain unclear.
Austin Monahan's post "on behalf of me and my brother" is agonizingly
personal and apparently heartfelt, as he describes watching "our mom come
out of pure hell after getting out of her relationship with Keith Ellison."
As to the timing of his going public, Austin Monahan offers a somewhat
disconnected explanation that implies he acted without consulting his
mother:
My mom has always tried to protect me and my brother. She doesn't have to
protect us anymore and we aren't letting her stand alone. When we found out
our mom was planning on sharing her story, that is all we needed to hear
for
us to share ours and stand with our mom. You want to smear someone, try to
lie about a person who didn't do shit to deserve the ongoing emotional,
physical abuse, smear me and my brother.
He doesn't explain why he decided to go public ahead of his mother. He does
explain why he didn't go public in 2017, because "our mom begged us not to
and she along with others convinced us is wasn't in our mom's best
interest." [emphasis added] But that raises the question: if he was
consulting with his mom and others in 2017, who (if anyone) was he
consulting with in 2018? What changed? But his own account, the impetus to
go public was much stronger more than a year earlier:
In the middle of 2017, I was using my moms computer trying to download
something and I clicked on a file, I found over 100 text and twitters
messages and video almost 2 min long that showed Keith Ellison dragging my
mama off the bed by her feet, screaming and calling her a "fucking bitch"
and telling her to get the fuck out of his house. The messages I found,
were
mixed with him consistently telling my mom he wanted her back, he missed
her, he knew he fucked up and we wished he could do things different, he
would victim shaming, bully her, and threaten her if she went public. I
text
him and told him I know what you did to my mama and a few other things.
So here's a 25-year-old man basically admitting he invaded his mother's
privacy, not just accidentally and briefly, but long enough to, in effect,
compile a dossier on her ex-lover. OK, that seems unusual, but the facts
remain the facts, whatever they are. So far, the Monahans have released
edited versions of much of the correspondence. Those who have seen it say
it
shows no domestic violence. But the videotape, which would be dispositive
as
described, remains private.
On August 12, in mid-afternoon, Keith Ellison responded to the Monahan post
with a brief statement issued by his campaign:
Karen and I were in a long-term relationship which ended in 2016, and I
still care deeply for her well-being.
This video does not exist because I never behaved this way, and any
characterization otherwise is false.
A little more than an hour later, KarenMonahan01 posted on Twitter:
What my son said is true. Every statement he made was true. @keithellison,
you know you did that to me. I have given every opportunity to get help and
heal. Even now, u r willing to say my son is lying and have me continue to
leak more text and info just so others will believe him
Someone called ChattyEmu later responded on Twitter, going to the heart of
the matter:
Karen, your son says there's a video. You say your son is telling the
truth.
There's no evidence of abuse in the text messages you showed MPR [Minnesota
Public Radio], according to MPR. If you have video evidence - or *any
evidence* - of abuse, please release it now.
That evening, Karen Monahan released her own, very long statement that Fox
9
in Minneapolis posted on its website. In setting the context for her own
story, Karen Monahan referred to Anita Hill, adding: "There are countless
stories throughout history and currently where women who break their
silence
are smeared, minimized, punished, bullied and cast out of communities." She
also cited another Minnesota woman, Lindsey Port, whose promising political
career took a hit after she blew the whistle on sexual harassers in the
Democratic patriarchy, her own party (at least one state senator resigned).
Instead of supporting her, "the progressive community, who was pointing
fingers at the other party about the same atrocities, crucified her. They
bullied her, isolated her, withheld promised donations to her organization,
which helped build individuals capacity to be part of the social change,
and
much more," Monahan wrote. She has now challenged the same "progressive"
community.
Monahan's account of her relationship with Ellison is credible as
presented,
but without a great deal of specificity. An exception is her very specific
account of what supposedly appears on the video her son came across:
One night I confronted him [Keith Ellison] very calm about a lie he had
just
told me straight to my face. What happened next was a rage that I had never
witnessed to that magnitude. He was becoming a person I had never seen
before. The next morning, he came into the room I was sleeping in. I was
laying across the bed with my headphones on, listening to podcast on my
phone. He said he was about to leave town for the weekend and told me to
take the trash out. Given the explosive outrage that occurred the night
before, I just should shook my head yes. I didn't look up at him or saying
anything. That is when he tried to drag me off the bed by my legs and feet,
screaming "bitch you answer when I am talking to you. I said take out the
trash, your a bad guest (even though we were living in the same place). He
kept trying to drag me off the bed, telling me to get the fuck out of his
house, over and over. I froze.
He had to leave and get on the plane. He knocked the shoe off my foot and
told me I better be gone when he gets back (which was in two days). This
happened in 2016. The gaslighting, manipulation, name calling and cheating
started in 2014. By time the physical abuse occurred, I was dealing with
the
PTSD full blown. I secured an apartment within those two days. I borrowed
the money I needed and spent that whole weekend searching for an apartment
until I found one. I couldn't move in until a couple months. During the
waiting period he asked me several times to please not move out, he would
reimburse me for the deposit. In my gut, I knew it was the right thing to
do
and said "no".
After describing additional abusive behavior that she says Ellison
participated in, Monahan refers to her offer of "restorative justice"
(quoted above). Is that where she wants this process to go? In the middle
of
an election? She does not articulate any way out of this quandary created
by
her son. She doesn't offer an opinion as to whether Ellison should be the
next attorney general of Minnesota, but her allegations, left unresolved,
could determine the outcome. The electorate needs to know whether the video
exists. And who shot it. How can there be a video without a videographer?
As
a victim, Karen Monahan deserves a fair hearing, but she also has an
obligation to full and precise disclosure, as does Ellison. But as a
presumed victim, she still has no right to victimize the people of
Minnesota.
After his primary victory August 14, Ellison again denied the Monahans'
claims, calling them "other stuff," while adding: "We'll be talking about
this other stuff in the next few days. We're not trying to avoid the topic.
We will handle it head-on."
Depending on how all this plays out, Minnesota voters face the possibility
that their next attorney general may be either someone who indulges in
personal domestic violence or a Republican, whose domestic violence is
national policy.
[NOTE: here endeth the story, a gratuitous photo follows]
Karen Monahan & Keith Ellison circa 2015 (Twitter: @keithellison)
William M. Boardman has over 40 years experience in theatre, radio, TV,
print journalism, and non-fiction, including 20 years in the Vermont
judiciary. He has received honors from Writers Guild of America,
Corporation
for Public Broadcasting, Vermont Life magazine, and an Emmy Award
nomination
from the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work.
Permission
to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader
Supported News.
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