Despite the fact that it was Black women who helped Doug Jones narrowly win the Alabama Senate race last week, Jones believes it is time for Congress to move on from sexual misconduct allegations against President Donald Trump.
On CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday program, Jones said the American people had the opportunity to decide if the allegations against President Trump mattered to them. “People had an opportunity to judge before that election. I think we need to move on and not get distracted by those issues.”
“I don’t think the president ought to resign at this point. We’ll see how things go,” Jones said.
While most of Trump’s accusers are White women, former Miss Ohio Candace Smith claims Trump was in the dressing room of Miss USA and flew young women out to stay in Trump properties.
We can understand Jones wanting to put his hard-fought election behind him and wanting to reach out to Republicans to get important work done in Alabama. However, to simply suggest that the American people should move on from these very serious allegations is shameful.
Doug Jones didn’t simply believe that we should move on from the murders of four young girls at 16th Baptist Church. He doggedly pursued co-conspirators Thomas Edwin Blanton Jr. and Bobby Frank Cherry and the pair was convicted of the murders in 2001 and 2002, more than 38 years after the crime. Jones called the conviction of those two Klan leaders as “the most important thing I have ever done.” We commend him for this heroic act. But there’s still work to be done for women.
This year has seen an unprecedented amount of public sexual assault and misconduct cases that were simply swept under the rug with settlements, or worse, never publicly mentioned. Fortunately, those days are over. We’re not going to simply ‘move on.’ Anyone who is accused of sexual harassment, assault or misconduct must face the music for their behavior.
If Jones claims to be an ally of women, then he must not only believe women but must also support an investigation into the president’s behavior. Don’t bite your tongue and look the other way before you have the chance to potentially fix another wrong in history. Support an investigation into the actions of President Trump.