"Question of Standards": Keith Ellison versus Karen Monahan on her beatings.

The recent Capitol Hill hearings of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh may have been the biggest flashpoint of the #metoo movement to date. The hearings raised the question of standards, in the #metoo era. Are women to be believed based solely on an unproven allegation? If corroboration is required, then what's good enough? And who gets to decide? Those are some of the tricky questions raised by abuse allegations made against a top Democrat official Congressman Keith Ellison by an ex-girlfriend who spoke to Sharyl this week.

Karen Monahan— a Sierra Club organizer born in Iran— had a long-term, but rocky romantic relationship with Congressman Keith Ellison. Karen Monahan: I met Keith Ellison when I was doing community organizing work. Monahan now claims Ellison, the number two official in the national Democratic party, subjected her to long term psychological abuse and one instance of physical abuse. Sharyl: I’m going to ask this question at the beginning because I know in this environment a lot of people are going to want to know: are you a Democrat or Republican or something else? Monahan: All my life, I voted Democrat. Monahan was home lying on the bed in August 2016, she says, when an argument started before Ellison left on a trip. Monahan: He walked in, he asked me to take out the trash. I shook my head, yes, but I kept looking down at my phone. She claims she managed to video some of what happened next on her phone. We only know because her adult son told about the video on social media. But she’s declined to show us or anyone else, saying it’s traumatizing and embarrassing. Monahan: I just wanted him to leave. And when I didn't look up; look up at him and I shook my head, that’s when he said, “Hey, I'm ----ing talking to you! You need to listen!” And I was stunned and that's when he grabbed my ankles and said, “You need to get the ---- out. You need to get the ---- out now.” And he started grabbing my ankles, trying to pull me out the bed, told me I was a “bad guest.” Sharyl: You were a guest in his house? Monahan: I lived there. Sharyl: What happened after that? Monahan: He kept trying to pull me. I put my body weight— he didn't pull me off the bed. He was trying to drag me off the bed and then he looked down, I guess, and knocked my flip flop off my— I had flip flop house shoes on— knocked it off my foot and told me I better be “the ---- out of this house.” Monahan claims that capped off years of psychological abuse. Afterward, they patched things up off and on until they broke up for good in January 2017. That’s when Monahan became an advocate; frequently speaking of domestic abuse on social media, but never mentioning Ellison by name. Four months after the breakup, Ellison sent a threatening text message.

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