Michigan state Sen. Peter Lucido (R) has changed his story on the comment he made to local reporter Allison Donahue that a group of high school boys “could have fun” with her.
Initially, he painted the exchange as a “misunderstanding.”
I apologize for the misunderstanding yesterday and for offending Allison Donahue.
— Sen. Peter J. Lucido (@SenPeterJLucido) January 15, 2020
In subsequent interviews with the Washington Post and WDIV-TV, he said that he was actually misquoted.
“I said, ‘We’re going on the (Senate) floor to have some fun; you’re welcome to join us,'” he told WDIV-TV, blaming Donahue for misinterpreting his remark.
He changed his tune from the initial tweet as the story started attracting national attention and Michigan Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey (R) and Minority Leader Jim Ananich (D) asked the Senate Business Office to conduct a sexual harassment investigation into the interaction.
Lucido did not respond to TPM’s request for clarification.
During the initial interaction, Donahue was trying to interview Lucido about his membership in a Facebook group violently opposed to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) when he put her off to first honor a group of boys from his high school alma mater. As he walked away, Donahue recalled that he said “you could have a lot of fun with these boys, or they could have a lot of fun with you.”
When he came back, she told him she’d found the remark “unprofessional.” He said that he was merely referring to the awkwardness boys from all-male schools feel around women. Donahue has the second part of the conversation recorded and embedded in the first-person account she wrote for her paper, the Michigan Advance.
