Trent Franks resigns immediately from Congress after his wife is hospitalized

Rep. Trent Franks, R-Ariz., announced Friday that he is resigning from Congress effective immediately instead of waiting until the end of January.

Franks said Thursday he would leave next month after it emerged that he discussed surrogate parenthood with two female staffers — some reports said he asked them directly to be a surrogate mother. But in a Friday a statement, Franks said his wife was admitted to a hospital Thursday night due to a recurring health issue, and that Friday would be his last day as a sitting member of Congress.

"Last night, my wife was admitted to the hospital in Washington, D.C. due to an ongoing ailment," Franks said. "After discussing options with my family, we came to the conclusion that the best thing for our family now would be for me to tender my previous resignation effective today, December 8th, 2017."

Franks said he discussed surrogacy with his staff because he and his wife have suffered from infertility, and were looking to have a third child.

"Due to my familiarity and experience with the process of surrogacy, I clearly became insensitive as to how the discussion of such an intensely personal topic might affect others," Franks said. "I have recently learned that the Ethics Committee is reviewing an inquiry regarding my discussion of surrogacy with two previous female subordinates, making each feel uncomfortable. I deeply regret that my discussion of this option and process in the workplace caused distress."

"But in the midst of this current cultural and media climate, I am deeply convinced I would be unable to complete a fair House Ethics investigation before distorted and sensationalized versions of this story would put me, my family, my staff, and my noble colleagues in the House of Representatives through hyperbolized public excoriation," Franks said, saying then that he would remain in Congress for most of the next two months. "It is with the greatest sadness, that for the sake of the causes I deeply love, I must now step back from the battle I have spent over three decades fighting."

Franks had served in Congress since 2003 and was a member of the House Freedom Caucus.

“He showed poor judgment in taking this to his young staff, “

Extremely poor judgment. And insensitive. Good grief, the man already had one woman carry twins for him. That is a high risk pregnancy that can put a woman on bed rest for months. It really wrecks a body, too, and it never goes back like it was afterward. Trust me.

You don’t just sidle up to your secretary and say, “Oh, by the way, my wife and I are shopping for a womb to rent. Interested?”

It is a very intimate and life changing thing he is asking of any woman, even if no sex or physical contact is involved. He is still asking to use her body in a profound way for his personal procreation. I can understand why she might be a little creeped out imagining him thinking of her with her belly swollen with his child, not to mention his thoughts about her expanding bustline. Would he ask to feel the baby move? Would he want to be there for the birth? And then he’d wrench the newborn away from her when it was over and he and his wife would take it home to raise, leaving her with empty arms.

No, I would most definitely not want my boss to EVEN go there. The fact that he mentioned it at all would probably make me look for another job.

Having said all that, though, I would not be making an issue about it years later or screaming sexual harassment or some such. He was an insensitive oaf, but that inquiry alone did not make him a predator.

His wife's ovum, his sperm, in vitro fertilization. The embryo is then transferred into the uterous of the surrogate.

That could depend on the reason for the infertility. If there was a problem with the wife not producing ovum or any viable ovum, then they could use a donor egg fertilized with his sperm and that is according to multiple reports, just how he and his wife became parents to their twins – going to an infertility clinic and with their help procuring a donor egg which was then fertilized and then implanted into a surrogate using in-vitro.

Take a look at this picture and tell me those children are biologically his wife’s who is Filipina.

They used a well know infertility clinic to become parents to their twins so I would ask why he and his wife didn’t go back to that clinic instead of him asking his female staffers to do the job?

I also understand that his wife Josephine Franks is 57 years old so is likely post-menopausal.

There is just no way to justify a boss asking his female subordinates, not once but multiple times to carry his child, even if by artificial insemination. And the offer of $5 million dollars if true, is even creepier.

Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.) offered a female staff member $5 million if she would bear his child, said a woman who helped bring the matter to the attention of House leaders, prompting Franks’s immediate resignation Friday.

Andrea Lafferty said she encouraged the Franks aide, who had left his office after the alleged conduct, to bring the story to the attention of the House Republican leadership and was present when the aide was interviewed last week by House lawyers.

“He offered her $5 million if she would conceive a child, that’s what she told,” Lafferty, who is president of the Traditional Values Coalition, an advocacy group that promotes social conservative views shared by Franks.

The woman told investigators that Franks had approached her with papers that he described as a written contract for her to review, Lafferty said: “She didn’t want any part of it, and she rejected that.”

After rejecting Franks’s advances, the woman said, she felt sidelined within his office and eventually left, according to Lafferty.

Lafferty declined to put a Washington Post reporter in touch with the former aide Friday. The woman spoke earlier in the day to the Associated Press, telling the news agency that she “was asked a few times to look over a ‘contract’ to carry his child, and if I would conceive his child, I would be given $5 million.”

I can’t imagine a scenario ever, where this would be an appropriate request in the work place.

Boss to female subordinate: Would you be interested in being a surrogate and helping me and my post-menopausal wife carrying my baby?

Subordinate female employee: No. No thanks, not interested.

Boss to female subordinate: well here look over this contract and tell me if you are still not interested in carrying my baby.

Subordinate female employee: No. No thanks, once again, I am not interested.

Boss to female subordinate: Ok but look at this contract again…

Subordinate female employee: I told you before that I am not interested in doing this and this continued conversation makes me uncomfortable.

Boss to female subordinate: Not even for $5 million dollars?

Subordinate female employee: No. Still not interested.

Boss to female subordinate: You know (and completely unrelated to you not wanting to carry my baby) I really just don’t need you to attend any more meetings, your role and job in this office is going to be downsized and relegated to nothing more than running for coffee and making photo copies.

Subordinate female employee: Fine but I’m out of here.

Furthermore, try to imagine a scenario where if one of his female staffers had agreed to this, coming to work every day with his baby growing inside her and thinking that they could maintain any type of strictly professional relationship.

No, it was in no way appropriate and unfortunately, right or wrong has given liberals ammo to compare this to a real life “Handmaid’s Tail”.

Take a look at this picture and tell me those children are biologically his wife’s who is Filipina.

I could not rule it out.

Whether it is his wife's ova (plural of ovum) or a donor's (one of the surrogate's possibly), it is creepy for this to be made to a coworker, or this case, a subordinate. This surely would be bound to cause workplace friction/complications leading to the very issues we are reading about now.

I could see him asking a long time friend who would understand his situation. But in a work place no matter how well he might think he knows his subordinate this is unwise.

The woman spoke earlier in the day to the Associated Press, telling the news agency that she “was asked a few times to look over a ‘contract’ to carry his child, and if I would conceive his child, I would be given $5 million.”

This sounds like an attempt to conflate "carry his child" and/or "conceive his child" with him having sexual intercourse with the surrogate. I cannot tell who is trying to equate the former two (the second possibly being where it is her ovum and not the as you speculate the post-menopausal wife's) with the latter -- the subordinate or the AP writer. This is the spin I was addressing.

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