The wife of Maine Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner mentioned she was “deeply hurt” after particulars of her husband’s extramarital sexting turned public Saturday, accusing a former marketing campaign official and confidante of betraying her belief.
The assertion from Platner’s wife, Amy Gertner, got here after each The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal reported that Gertner had flagged to marketing campaign employees final 12 months sexual textual content messages her husband had with different ladies shortly after he introduced his Senate marketing campaign.
“I know who Graham is,” Gertner mentioned in a press release delivered by means of Platner’s marketing campaign. “I know the man I married and the husband he has been to me on the best and the worst days of my life. That hasn’t changed, and it won’t.”
Genevieve McDonald, the previous political director for Platner’s marketing campaign, confirmed to NCS on Saturday that Gertner disclosed to her final 12 months that Platner had been sexting a number of ladies and that the marketing campaign evaluated the matter as a possible political legal responsibility.
According to each The Times and The Journal, Gertner instructed Platner’s marketing campaign final August about textual content messages she had present in spring 2025 between her husband and different ladies early of their marriage. The publications reported that she flagged the messages as Platner’s marketing campaign internally vetted the candidate.
NCS has not independently confirmed the existence of the textual content messages. NCS did confirm that an account on the messaging app Kik seems to belong to Platner. The account, below the username “phustle0331,” incorporates a profile photograph exhibiting Platner shirtless in a toilet with a towel on his waist and makes use of a deal with just like ones on his since-deleted Reddit account and a now-deleted Instagram account.
According to The Times, Gertner reported her husband’s messages to different ladies to his marketing campaign’s then-political director, McDonald — whom Gertner appeared to refer in Saturday’s assertion.
“I confided deeply personal details about my marriage to someone I considered a friend,” Gertner’s assertion mentioned.
“I trusted this person with the most private chapter of our lives — the early days of our marriage before any campaign was on our mind — and I am deeply hurt by her betrayal and the invasion of our privacy,” she mentioned.
Platner, a Marine Corps veteran with no prior political expertise, has change into a lightning rod since asserting his upstart marketing campaign to problem incumbent Republican Sen. Susan Collins.
He acquired fierce blowback early in his marketing campaign after it was revealed that he had a tattoo resembling a Nazi image on his chest. Platner mentioned he acquired the tattoo when he was in his 20s and within the army and didn’t notice its significance till lately. He has since mentioned he has lined the tattoo.
But reporting by NCS’s KFile later undercut his declare of ignorance over the tattoo’s symbolism. In a social media thread from 2019, Platner mentioned the symbol — a skull-and-crossbones “Totenkopf” — whereas noting that many US service members had adopted the imagery.
NCS and different retailers have additionally reported on different statements Platner made earlier than he was a Senate candidate. He as soon as known as himself a “communist” and dismissed police as “bastards.” He disavowed these feedback throughout a earlier interview with NCS.