Blake Miguez, 44, not criminally charged over allegation reported to local police but never disclosed to public

A Louisiana Republican congressional candidate endorsed by Donald Trump was the subject of a 2007 rape accusation that was reported to local law enforcement the same day of the alleged assault – but never disclosed to the public or, reportedly, the president’s team as he became one of the rising stars in the state’s Republican party.

That has raised concerns within the White House that Blake Miguez “either wasn’t fully vetted or wasn’t forthcoming about discoverable documents from his past” before securing Trump’s backing, the Atlantic reported on Wednesday, citing two unnamed sources familiar with the endorsement process.

Miguez’s campaign told the Atlantic it denied the allegations by a woman who described him as a “live-in ex boyfriend” at the time. The claims did not result in any formal criminal charges after the accuser said she refused to press charges against Miguez – then in law school – because she did not want to get him into trouble, according to what investigators wrote in a police report obtained by the Guardian through a public records request.

  • gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world
    5·
    17 hours ago

    Furthermore, Miguez’s campaign responded to the Guardian’s list of questions about the police report by providing a 24 February email sent by the accuser’s father to the state senator’s office, which had the sentence: “Everything my daughter has reported about you were lies and she is a liar and has a drug problem.”

    The email doesn’t elaborate on precisely how the author knows his daughter told lies, and he didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. But Miguez’s campaign said in a statement: “The woman’s father gave permission to share this email with you.”

    This is like the most abuser coded series of actions and statements short of actually assaulting someone I can imagine