The Senator, who is up for reelection next month, published the advert as an open letter to her Republican opponent, Representative Kevin Cramer.\u00a0 \u00a0Oops, it turns out that Senator Heitkamp made a mistake.\u00a0 A big one.\u00a0\u00a0Several of the women listed as signees of the \u2018letter\u2019 have spoken out on social media to say they were either not a victim\/survivor of sexual assault, or that their names had been made public without their permission.<\/p>\n
https:\/\/www.sayanythingblog.com\/entry\/women-say-heitkamp-campaign-identified-them-as-sexual-assault-survivors-without-their-permission\/<\/a><\/p>\n In response, Sen. Heitkamp said the following:<\/p>\n \u201cWe recently discovered that several of the women\u2019s names who were provided to us did not authorize their names to be shared or were not survivors of abuse,\u201d Ms. Heitkamp\u00a0said in a statement<\/a>\u00a0on Tuesday.<\/p>\n She added: \u201cI deeply regret this mistake and we are in the process of issuing a retraction, personally apologizing to each of the people impacted by this and taking the necessary steps to ensure this never happens again.\u201d<\/p>\n Sounding emotional, Senator Heitkamp stated, \u201cThis is a very flagrant error of the campaign, and I own it.\u2019<\/p>\n Heitkamp revealed that her campaign got the names through advocates who work with victims.\u00a0 What?\u00a0 Victim advocates shared the names of victims without their consent?!\u00a0 And where did the names of woman who are listed as signatories but say they have never been victimized come from?\u00a0\u00a0This is also a flagrant violation of trust.\u00a0 How did the abuse advocates reveal the names of victims to a political campaign?\u00a0\u00a0How can true survivors who choose not to go public be confident in Senator Heitkamp?\u00a0 We can\u2019t.<\/p>\n After the ad ran, several women took to social media to state that either their name was made public without their permission, or that they had never been a victim of sexual harassment or assault.<\/p>\n https:\/\/bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com\/wahpetondailynews.com\/content\/tncms\/assets\/v3\/classifieds\/3\/06\/30637ad1-1360-5b3c-a01a-18ff134c1e61\/5bc4a4c7f27dc.pdf.pdf<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"