'Where else do his hands go?' Donald Trump tweets about Al Franken sexual harassment

Donald Trump has dubbed a Democratic Senator accused of groping “Frankenstein” as he went on the attack after sexual allegations against his own party. 

The US president accused Al Franken, the comedian turned congressman, of hypocrisy after a photo emerged of him grabbing at the breasts of a sleeping woman. 

Mr Trump tweeted: “The Al Frankenstien picture is really bad, speaks a thousand words. Where do his hands go in pictures 2, 3, 4, 5 & 6 while she sleeps?...."

“And to think that just last week he was lecturing anyone who would listen about sexual harassment and respect for women.”

Mr Trump’s criticism of Mr Franken, who sits on Congress committee investigating Russian election links, is in marked contrast to his response to allegations against Republicans. 
 

The US president has failed to tweet about accusations that Roy Moore, the firebrand Republican candidate for an Alabaman Senate seat, pestered and assaulted teenage girls. 

The row, which has seen nine women come forward with claims, has run for more than a week and triggered widespread calls for Mr Moore to stand down from Republican leaders. 

Mr Trump’s spokesman has twice said Mr Moore should quit if the allegations – which he denies in the strongest terms – are proved true, but did not matched calls for him to quit now. 

Mr Trump "thinks that the people of Alabama should make the decision on who their next senator should be," said Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary. 

The row comes with Washington DC reeling after a week of lurid allegations about how congressmen, candidates and political staff treat women. 

Both the Senate and the House of Representatives announced that sexual harassment training will become mandatory as a letter demanding the change was signed by 1,500 former congressional staff. 

Mr Franken, a star of the popular comedy show Saturday Night Live [SNL] before entering politics, became the first sitting senator to face on the record allegations of harassment this week. 

He was accused of forcing a kiss while practicing a comedy routine with a model and groping her breasts as she slept during a tour of Afghanistan in 2006, before Mr Franken entered politics. 

Leeann Tweeden, who had posed for male magazines such as Playboy and Maxim at the time and is now a radio host, went public with the claims on Thursday. 

She explained: "On the day of the show, Franken and I were alone backstage going over our lines one last time. He said to me, 'We need to rehearse the kiss.' 

“I laughed and ignored him. Then he said it again. I said something like, 'Relax Al, this isn’t 'SNL' ... we don't need to rehearse the kiss.' He continued to insist, and I was beginning to get uncomfortable.”

She said Mr Franken then "put his hand on the back of my head, mashed his lips against mine and aggressively stuck his tongue in my mouth”. 

Ms Tweeden also revealed a photograph that showed Mr Franken grabbing at Ms Tweeden  wrote. "I felt violated all over again. Embarrassed. Belittled. Humiliated."

Mr Franken initially responded by saying: “While I don't remember the rehearsal for the skit as Leeann does, I understand why we need to listen to and believe women’s experiences."

He later issued a longer apology, saying: “I don't know what was in my head when I took that picture, and it doesn't matter. There's no excuse.”