Sex assault survivor to NJ candidate: Take down video of me

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — A former government official who says she is a sexual assault survivor is demanding that the New Jersey Republican gubernatorial candidate stop using her story as a “political prop” in a campaign video that bashes Gov. Phil Murphy.

Katie Brennan, who has said she was sexually assaulted by a peer while they both worked on Murphy's behalf in 2017, said Friday she wasn't consulted before Jack Ciattarelli this week launched PhilMurphyDoesNotCare.com. The site prominently features a video of Brennan speaking before legislators and charges that Murphy uses women as “political props."

She said in a tweet earlier she wasn't a prop or a pawn herself.

“Take it down,” she said Friday.

“I wasn’t consulted prior to the creation of the website and the ad campaign and had I been would have expressed my displeasure with it. It looks like an endorsement of the Ciattarelli campaign, which is not my intent,” she said in a phone interview.

She added: “There is a way to hold people accountable and talk about the mistakes of the past and what their vision and plans for betterment and equity and reform are in the future without dragging me into the fight in a way that I certainly did not ask to be.”

Ciattarelli’s campaign has not yet responded to questions seeking a response. Messages have also been left with Murphy’s campaign.

The video shows testimony before lawmakers from Brennan, interspersed with text from Ciattarelli saying Murphy chose not to do anything to help her until it negatively impacted him.

This week’s development draws voters’ attention back to the #MeToo movement and the treatment of women in state politics, widely acknowledged to have a toxic history. Before the coronavirus pandemic ground much in state politics to a halt, New Jersey was confronting...