Trigger warning: discussion of sex trafficking
By now, most of us know that Alabama’s junior Senator, Katie Britt, stepped on a rake during her debut on the national stage. Three months into her term, she was tapped to deliver the Republican response to President Biden’s State of the Union address. She was deservedly panned for a performance that made her sound like Kimberly Guilfoyle—er, Shrillfoyle—with a Southern accent. But even worse than her red meat-laden and over-the-top delivery, she used her speech to blatantly lie to the American people.
In case you missed it, Britt claimed that when she paid a visit to the border town of Del Rio, Texas shortly after being sworn in, she spoke with a Mexican woman who had been trafficked from the age of 12—and claimed Biden was to blame. But there was one big problem—it wasn’t true. Former Associated Press reporter Jonathan Katz used a simple Google search to discover the events Britt discussed actually took place between 2004 and 2008—when one George W. Bush was president.
Well, on Sunday, the woman at the center of that story, Karla Jacinto Romero, spoke up for the first time. And to put it mildly, she was not happy. Mark Sumner mentioned this in “7 stories to know,” but this merits a fuller look.