Wife Slapper Tom Carper (D-Delaware)

Why is he still a senator?

Delaware Online: Donald Trump Jr. tweet revives domestic violence accusation against U.S. Sen. Tom Carper.

U.S. Sen. Tom Carper’s decades-old spousal abuse controversy was resurrected Thursday by President Donald Trump’s oldest son.

“You admitted to hitting your wife so hard it gave her a black eye,” Donald Trump Jr. wrote in a tweet he later retweeted.

Trump Jr. was referring to an incident in the early 1980s in which Carper slapped his now late-wife Diane.

“Senator Carper has always been — and will continue to be — undeterred in his efforts to make sure our government officials are following the law and are held accountable to the Americans they are supposed to serve,” said Carper spokeswoman Katie Wilson.  “He certainly isn’t going to let anyone, especially a man who routinely traffics in conspiracy theories and mocks victims of sexual assault, distract him from pursuing the truth and doing his job.”

Trump Jr. raised the issue this week in direct response to a Carper tweet in which the Delaware Democrat announced the Office of Special Counsel had warned Melania Trump’s spokeswoman that one of her tweets was found to be in violation of the Hatch Act.

The 1939 law prohibits employees in the executive branch from engaging in some forms of political activity.

Carper, a member of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, has repeatedly requested the OSC investigate members of the Trump administration for violating the rule.

n the most recent case, Melania Trump spokeswoman Stephanie Grisham in July tweeted a photo from the president’s campaign rally in Tampa, Florida, using the #MAGA, an acronym for his campaign slogan, Make America Great Again.

The OSC does not have the authority to issue punishments for Hatch Act violations – a power reserved solely by the president.  read more

*

*

*

SNIP: Here’s what the Washington Free Beacon had to say about this in 2017:

Tom Carper Admitted to Hitting His Wife in 1998 Interview.

Carper said allegation was ‘without basis in fact’ during first campaign for Congress.

December 14, 2017 1:30 pm

Delaware senator Tom Carper admitted to slapping his wife in a 1998 interview with a veteran political journalist in the state, confirming an accusation he denied when first running for Congress.

Carper represented Delaware first in the House, then was elected governor in 1993, and has been in the Senate since 2001. He fought the accusation that he hit his wife when it first emerged during his 1982 run for Congress, saying it was “without basis in fact” and pledging to sue the New York Post, which first published the accusation in 1982, for libel.

Carper won in 1982 largely by attacking his Republican opponent for his “vicious” efforts to “smear” him and his wife, but 16 years later he admitted to Delaware reporter Celia Cohen that the accusation was true all along.

“Did I slap my wife 20 years ago? Yes,” Carper said. “Do I regret it? Yes. Would I do it again? No.”

Carper’s statement to Cohen is included in her book, Only in Delaware, which is sold by the state of Delaware on its official website and covers her more than two decades covering the state’s politics. Cohen notes in her book that the abuse allegation against Carper had resurfaced once, but that he managed to avoid facing the allegations throughout his political career.

Carper “would not speak of the allegations, even when they were repackaged and resurfaced 14 years later while he was running for a second term as governor,” Cohen wrote. “In an interview in 1998 for this writing, however, he dealt with them straightforwardly.”

Carper responded to the initial 1982 report by the New York Post that he hit his wife, which was based on a taped deposition of Carper taken as part of a custody fight between his wife and her first husband, by flatly denying it.

“Let me say clearly and categorically that the implications in that story are without basis in fact,” Carper told the News Journal a day after the Post story was published. He called the story “outrageous” and an attempt by his opponent at “political character assassination.”

The Post wrote that during the custody battle over his wife Diane’s two children, Carper was accused of hitting his wife “so hard he gave her a black eye.” It said that Carper admitted the incident occurred during a 1981 deposition. The Post story also said the children told the News Journal “that they were slapped around and bruised by Carper for doing such things as leaving the family dog on the bed.”  read more

h/t Hot Salsa.