Democratic Maine Senate hopeful Graham Platner lied about not knowing the true meaning of his “Totenkopf” Nazi symbol tattoo, according to his ex-girlfriend.
Platner, a few months after the announcement of his Senate campaign, was bombarded with questions about the ink on his chest, which depicted a skull-and-crossbones — widely recognized as a symbol for the Nazi SS death squads.
The wannabe senator maintained that he thought it was merely a “terrifying skull and crossbones,” telling Politico in a statement in October that he “absolutely would not have gone through life having this on my chest” if he knew the meaning of the tattoo.
Platner, however, knew exactly what the hateful ink represented, his ex-girlfriend, Lyndsey Fifield, 40, told the New York Times.
When the pair dated years ago, Platner would call the tattoo “my Totenkopf,” Fifield alleged in the bombshell report.
“I would never have known what that was,” she told the outlet. “He would joke about it being a Nazi tattoo.”
Fifield claimed that Platner told her that he and other Marines in his unit selected the tattoo because “they were like a death unit, they were killers.”
She added that Platner said his fellow Marines saw a parallel between their unit and the Nazi SS unit that killed six million Jews during the Holocaust.
“They literally, deliberately, selected it because it was relevant to their military unit,” Fifield claimed.
Platner told Politico in the fall that he was “already planning to get this removed” when he was supposedly confronted with the tattoo’s symbolism for the first time.
His campaign told The Times that he “strongly disputes” Fifield’s account of what he knew about the tattoo and told her.
The report featured interviews with Platner’s ex-girlfriends, who recounted their troubling time dating the Democrat candidate.
Platner, who’s been endorsed by progressives like Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, as well as Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, was described as someone who “hated women” and would call them “hatchet wounds,” in the latest campaign derailment since his sexting scandal.
Fifield, who dated Platner from 2013 to 2015, alleged the politician fantasized about killing people and raping intruders.
“He said this a lot: If anybody ever broke in here, I would rape them” — and “not in a gay way,” Fifield recalled to The Times. He was like, I would rape them to show them that I’m dominant.”
Here’s the latest on the bombshell sex allegations against lefty Senate candidate Graham Platner
Platner also allegedly manhandled Fifield on multiple occasions, including twisting her arm during a heated argument, and shoving her into a bedroom and telling her she couldn’t leave until she was “calm.”
“It hurt,” Fifield said. “It didn’t cause an injury, it didn’t break my arm.”
Platner disputed the claims, referring to Fifield — a Republican campaign worker from Virginia — as a “lifelong G.O.P. operative who’s dedicated her career to electing Republicans.”
“I know it looks like a bitter ex-girlfriend Republican trying to take down a Democrat — it has nothing to do with that,” she disputed. “If he was running as a Republican, I would be doing this exact same thing.”
Platner’s campaign erupted into scandal when the Wall Street Journal exposed him for texting multiple women on a hookup app while he was married.
He has since attempted damage control with Senate Democrats in DC after details of his extramarital sexts with half a dozen women roiled his campaign over the weekend.
“It’s not a secret I’ve had a messy, complicated life,” Platner told his hoped-for colleagues, the Wall Street Journal reported. “The worst of the rumors we’ve all heard are not true.”
Platner denied both abusing any exes and lying about knowing the meaning behind his Nazi symbol tattoo in his first major interview on Thursday night since the sexting scandal broke.
He called the accusations “politically motivated” on on MS NOW’s “All in with Chris Hayes.”
