Platner’s online past gets raunchier with crude takes on ‘Latin American hookers,’ cheating abroad
As Maine’s presumptive Democratic nominee for Senate faces criticism for insulting the armed forces on his now-deleted Reddit account, additional comments have emerged showing the combat veteran discussing prostitution overseas, including defending men who cheated on their wives while abroad.
Graham Platner made allusions to both Thai and Latin American prostitution in a pair of deleted Reddit posts from 2019 and 2012, respectively. In another post, dated April 2012, he defended men who cheat on their wives and girlfriends overseas while responding to a news article about prostitution.
"You don't have much experience with Latin American hookers, do you?" Platner wrote in April 2012, responding to another user who was expressing concerns that "prostitutes in Colombia are part of a giant sex trade and the women are effectively slaves."
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The reviewed comments do not establish that Platner hired sex workers, and the account often used crude or hyperbolic language.
The comments emerged as Platner’s deleted Reddit history has become a growing liability in his bid to unseat incumbent Republican Sen. Susan Collins, particularly after posts surfaced in which he called the U.S. Army "full of fat, lazy trash" and mocked Ted Daniels, a former Army infantryman and Purple Heart recipient who was wounded in Afghanistan. The archive has also shown Platner using slurs, denigrating white rural Americans, expressing support for political violence and making sexually explicit comments.
The same day as his post on "Latin American hookers," Platner made a post defending men who had cheated on their significant others while abroad.
"I've heard that idiotic sentiment made within the confines of the the [sic] military. ‘If you can't remain faithful to your wife, how can you remain faithful to your comrades?’" Platner wrote, responding to a piece about Secret Service agents using prostitutes. "Well, I have many good buddies who lied and cheated with women, and yet were straight shooting hard men when it came to their work."
"I find it is a sentiment only held by moral relativists who need something to cry about, intelligent people realize they are not mutually exclusive," he added.
Years later, Platner continued his discussion of prostitution on Reddit.
"And sadly, the Afghan tax f---ed everybody on the 330 game," Platner wrote in 2019. "Spend your leave banging hookers in Thailand instead of getting b----ed at by the wife back home, and you could sell it as avoiding federal income tax."
He was likely referring to a tax strategy used by some government contractors working abroad, where, if they spent more than 330 days outside the United States, they could avoid paying federal income tax.
The Platner campaign did not respond to a request for comment when reached by Fox News Digital on Friday.
The posts were made by the Reddit account "P-Hustle," which Platner acknowledges was his. Comments from that account have been compiled into a searchable database by the Maine Monitor.
"Graham Platner's moral depravity has alarmed Maine voters, forcing Democrats to distance themselves from him and his scandals," National Republican Senatorial Committee press secretary Bernadette Breslin told Fox News Digital.
The Senate hopeful has attributed his online behavior to psychological trauma stemming from his combat deployments as well as the "crude humor" and "offensive language" he became accustomed to while serving as a Marine.
"I’m sorry for this. Just know that it’s not reflective at all of who I am," Platner said of his Reddit comments in October. "I don’t want you to judge me on the dumbest thing I ever wrote on the internet. I would prefer if people could judge me on the person I am today."