Heitkamp Apologizes For USING Sexual Abuse Victims

As I mentioned earlier, Heidi Heitkamp ran a political ad about how much she CARES about sexual abuse survivors.

The kicker?

She didn’t ask the survivors for their CONSENT to be featured in the ad.

Stop and think about how SCREWED UP that is.

Anyway… she’s gotten RAKED for it… so she has issued an apology:

HEITKAMP: “This is a huge mistake that anyone was includes who should not have been included… Some of the women who may or may not have been victims of sexual assault deserve their privacy… and I can’t say I’m sorry enough. I am so, so sorry that it happened.”

— Phil Kerpen (@kerpen) October 16, 2018

Heitkamp: “We worked through advocates and they provided the names… I can’t tell you that there is any good or logical or appropriate reaction or response… there is no defense…”

— Phil Kerpen (@kerpen) October 16, 2018

Heitkamp: “There was a major failing… that’s as much as we know right now…these women in no way gave their permission nor did they want their names in the ad… I will not deny that in any way shape or form.”

— Phil Kerpen (@kerpen) October 16, 2018

Heitkamp: “This is on me. This has got my name on it… The worse thing you can do is take away their privacy… And I did exactly that. And I need to personally apologize and say I was wrong… There’s no sugarcoating this… This was a collosal error.”

— Phil Kerpen (@kerpen) October 16, 2018

YOU DON’T SAY.

Granted… I’ll give her SOME credit for taking full responsibility for this… but it’s not REALLY like she had a choice, did she?

Heitkamp: “Anything you say that people are feeling right now is fair… I’m not going to diminish the anger, the hurt, the irresponsibility of this. There’s no answer for this except to say that I am so incredibly sorry…”

— Phil Kerpen (@kerpen) October 16, 2018

Heitkamp: “That’s not going to be good enough for some people. All I can say is at the end of the day when I put my head on the pillow I know that I caused hurt… This was incompetent. This was wrong. This should have never happened.”

— Phil Kerpen (@kerpen) October 16, 2018

Heitkamp: “Some people who are lawyers would say the worst thing you can do if you’re worried about lawsuits is admit culpability or negligence and I’m admitting it right here… this is a very flagrant error of the campaign and I own it.”

— Phil Kerpen (@kerpen) October 16, 2018

Heitkamp: “I disagree with a lot of your criticisms of me and the campaign… but today your criticism of this campaign is right.”

— Phil Kerpen (@kerpen) October 16, 2018

The same Twitter thread includes one included woman’s account of what happened… and she’s FURIOUS.

Rob Port has identified at least 13 women who were wrongly named by Heitkamp, including his next guest Eve Lancaster.

— Phil Kerpen (@kerpen) October 16, 2018

EVE LANCASTER: “I had no idea what this open letter was open. I’m not even into politics… I had nothing to do with this and I saw that my name was on there and obviously I got really mad…”

— Phil Kerpen (@kerpen) October 16, 2018

EVE LANCASTER: “and all these other people were added to this list and it sounds like it was taken off of Facebook… a lot of the names are Facebook names… I’m assuming whoever did this contacted this girl I’m friends with on Facebook… she tagged all these women.”

— Phil Kerpen (@kerpen) October 16, 2018

EVE LANCASTER: “We were just friends on Facebook… she thought maybe I’d be interested in this because I’m a woman… I don’t know… It just so happened that they decided to take the people that were tagged and didn’t contact any of those people and put our names in the paper.”

— Phil Kerpen (@kerpen) October 16, 2018

EVE LANCASTER: “It’s really messed up. I don’t know if I want to have her apologize to me… wouldn’t you have the common sense to get in contact to get permission in order to prove your point on a serious subject like this?”

— Phil Kerpen (@kerpen) October 16, 2018

EVE LANCASTER: “It’s just weird that they would add every person that was on that list and where they live specifically…. if they were trying to put out awareness of sexual harassment why put our names and where we live? That’s easy access… That’s kind of creepy in a way.”

— Phil Kerpen (@kerpen) October 16, 2018

EVE LANCASTER: “I don’t keep up with anything on Heitkamp or Cramer or whatever but this is serious and I don’t know if she realizes the impact this has on people… whether they’ve been assaulted or not, but some of us were.”

— Phil Kerpen (@kerpen) October 16, 2018

EVE LANCASTER: “It’s horrible. It really makes me mad. I just don’t understand what this person was thinking… ‘Oh I’m just going to take all these names nothing’s going to happen.’ It’s getting all this attention in 24 hours. What does that say?”

— Phil Kerpen (@kerpen) October 16, 2018

EVE LANCASTER: “I agree with what the open letter was all about. I just don’t agree with the non-consent. It’s the same thing as the non-consent with sexual harassment. It’s the same thing, but different.”

— Phil Kerpen (@kerpen) October 16, 2018

YIIIIIKES.

Could this spell the end of Heidi Heitkamp?