Alabama senator Katie Britt, who delivered the widely panned response to Joe Biden’s State of the Union address, has been accused by a journalist of flat-out lying about a harrowing story she told about a woman recounting to her how she had been raped multiple times by multiple men when she was twelve years old. Britt implied that it was caused by Biden’s border policies.
But journalist Jonathan Katz says that she is lying, that the woman said that it happened to her in Mexico between 2004 and 2008.
The journalist and author Jonathan Katz has accused Britt of being “fundamentally dishonest” for invoking the case of a woman who had been sex-trafficked at age 12 and raped multiple times to illustrate the supposed failure of the Biden administration’s border control policies.
…“I spoke to a woman who shared her story with me,” Britt said. “She had been sex-trafficked by the cartels starting at age 12. She told me not just that she was raped every day, but how many times a day she was raped.”
The senator did not say where or when the events occurred, but in outraged tones she implied that they had happened in the US on Biden’s watch: “We wouldn’t be OK with this happening in a third-world country. This is the United States of America. And it’s past time we start acting like it. President Biden’s border crisis is a disgrace. It’s despicable and it’s almost entirely preventable.”
However, in a seven-minute video posted on TikTok, Katz – a former AP reporter who has written on drug wars in Mexico – cited details that appeared to show the story Britt was describing had happened not just outside the US, but many years before Biden became president.
…He concluded that Britt had deliberately misrepresented the tale of Karla Jacinto Romero, an activist who has publicly recounted her experiences on numerous occasions at the hands of sex traffickers in her native Mexico.
…In his video, Katz dissected what he said was Britt’s attempt to conflate Romero’s story with the US-Mexico border imbroglio, where the build-up of asylum seekers promises to become a central issue in the 2024 presidential election, before lambasting her for “dishonesty”.
Katz said that Britt, by not giving a location or a timeframe for the story, had deliberately tried to create a “beyond misleading” impression that the events had taken place recently and on US soil.
…In a statement to media outlets, Britt’s spokesperson Sean Ross sidestepped commenting on whether the senator had been alluding to Romero in Thursday’s speech but insisted her account was “100% correct”.
Here is Katz’s video.
@katzonearth This isn’t going to make her like TikTok more. #katiebritt #sotu #stateoftheunion #lies #politicians #biden2024 #trump2024 #immigration #traffickingawarenes #mexico #bordersecurity #fyp ♬ original sound – Jonathan M. Katz
Republicans take their cues from their Dear Leader and have absolutely no shame so that now the default assumption should be that they are lying until they have provided evidence that they are telling the truth.
“the default assumption should be that they are lying until they have provided evidence that they are telling the truth”
… and the default assumption at that point should be that the evidence they provided has been fabricated.
“…that the woman said that it happened to her in Mexico between 2004 and 2008.”
Biden wasn’t the Prez at that time, but someone else must have been.
Yeah, I noticed that in her speech and it sounded totally bogus to me right from the start.
They don’t have much of a choice, though: take away the hypocrisy and the shamelessness and there won’t be anything left.
Katie Britt finally admits sex-trafficking story isn’t linked to Joe Biden: report:
This also casts severe doubt (though not quite total disproof) on Britt’s claim to have heard this story directly from the survivor, though none of the accounts I’ve read mentions that aspect.
Alabama is closing fast on Kentucky as the state with the worst senators, though we should never forget the team from Florida can surge from behind dramatically at any moment.
@2: as much as I am not a fan of George Bush, I have to say that he was not responsible for any rape that occurred outside US borders to non-US citizens, perpetrated by other non-US citizens.
Also, please notice how Britt somehow “forgets” to mention that Romero fled the brothel in Mexico to the USA. Under Republican policies, she could not claim asylum simply for being trafficked underage and forced to work in a brothel.
Also, the red states are in a race to the bottom. Alabama has thrown down a gauntlet, let’s see what Florida comes up with in response.
The ideological background to Katie Britt’s performance in the House is actually creepy!
“Ever hear of “Fundie Baby Voice”? If you haven’t, you missed what was going on. It gets worse.”
.https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/3/10/2228575/-Ever-hear-of-Fundie-Baby-Voice-If-you-haven-t-you-missed-what-was-going-on-It-gets-worse
It happened when Dubya was president?
“Lock hin up! Lock him up!”
@Pierce R. Butler:
Kind of depends on how you are defining ‘directly’. If you mean the survivor told it to Britt personally, then no. But they were at least probably in the same room when it was being talked about. In a bit from Katz I saw quoted on Slacktivist (which also mentions the ‘Fundie Baby Voice’ aspect)
Why a white Christian lying about immigrants is so creepy
So, yeah, Jacinto wasn’t telling this to Britt personally (frankly, I’m not sure anybody would actually trust Britt with a story that personal) but she was telling it at a press conference that included Britt.