New Nazi-Tat Abuser Strategy: Threaten Defamation For, Er …

As we like to say: discovery will be lit! 

Perhaps not in the way Graham Platner expects, however.

As of yesterday, Platner seemed to be skating by on all of the scandals emerging from his Senate campaign, at least for the moment. He managed to avoid getting a question about his 18-year stretch of wearing a Nazi death-camp tattoo at his final primary town-hall event in Maine. No one asked why three women he formerly dated over a period of nearly a decade considered him abusive and violent. All he needed to do was to take the off-ramp and let matters quiet down over the next 60 hours or so until polls close tomorrow, and Platner will likely be the Democrat Senate nominee representing all of the Nazi-curious Kik account holders – er, for all of the oystermen of Maine. YMMV.

Instead, Platner chose to threaten legal action after Maine Wire reporter Steve Robinson talked with Fox News about Platner’s distant relationship to truth and integrity. Robinson called Platner a “pathological liar” on Friday evening while talking with Laura Ingraham:

Maine Wire reporter, Steve Robinson on Graham Platner:

“He’s proven himself to be a pathological liar…The oyster business, totally fake…Look at the date that his website for his fake oyster business was created, it was created after Graham for Maine, his Senate website.” pic.twitter.com/qgcfExM1CI

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) June 5, 2026

Pretty mild stuff, especially after the New York Times published a watered-down story about Platner’s violent dating history the day before. Platner had bigger fish to fry than Robinson or even Fox News, such as keeping Democrat endorsees in line before Tuesday’s primary. Ro Khanna showed up to campaign but told him to stop attacking Lyndsey Fifield and instead lean into a “redemption” narrative that sloughed off responsibility for abuse and his teen-social-media-platform trolling onto his military service.

As vile as that may be to other vets, it’s probably not the worst choice Platner could make. There are no good choices for a middle-aged ne’er-do-well facing this slew of scandals, but at least Khanna’s strategy offers a way to convert them into an “old news, asked and answered” narrative. About the worst possible strategy Platner could adopt would be to challenge the criticism and force an accounting with the evidence – like, say, threatening a lawsuit over commentary related to them.

Lo and behold, via Twitchy, that’s exactly what Platner decided to do last night (via Twitchy):

This is false and defamatory. I would have thought Fox News learned their lesson after paying Dominion $787.5 million. https://t.co/ZxnhyekTfv

— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) June 7, 2026

Eeeeenteresting. You know who Platner didn’t threaten with lawsuits for defamation? Lyndsey Fifield and Jenny Racicot. Platner didn’t threaten the New York Times either, which published the allegations of violent abuse. We call that a tell in poker. It sounds very much like Platner tacitly acknowledged the truth of those reports, including – very much including – Fifield’s claims that Platner has lied repeatedly about his Totenkopf tattoo and was well aware of its Nazi connections when he got it. 

It’s not even clear which part of this Platner claims is defamatory. Calling Platner a “pathological liar” is commentary, for one thing, but also the record supports the claim. Defamation claims put the burden of proof on the plaintiff, not the respondent, so Platner would have to prove that he told the truth about his tattoo, while Fifield’s texts and conversations with friends an easy rebuttal for Robinson. Truth is an absolute defense against defamation under US law, even without the Sullivan standard that would clearly apply to a political candidate.

What about Robinson’s claim that Platner registered his Senate campaign website before his “oysterman” business? Even if Robinson turned out to be wrong about that, it would not rise to the level of defamation (especially under Sullivan). However, as the community notes attached to Platner’s tweet make clear, Robinson told the truth. The WHOIS data for Platner’s Senate website shows that it was first registered in April 2023. The WHOIS data for WaukeganOysterCompany.com shows the domain was first registered in April 2024. 

Thanks to Platner’s legal threat, this is yet another way in which evidence points to Platner being a liar and a phony. As for the use of the term “oysterman,” I’ve never heard it before in any context. I’ve heard the term “lobsterman” often enough, maybe because most, if not all, lobster fishing takes place in the wild. Robinson says the term “oyster farmer” is common enough, which I’ll assume is true, but it hardly connotes a rugged outdoors activity. And in Platner’s case, where he’s only doing enough to supply his mom’s restaurant, it sounds a lot more like a sinecure than a career. The whole thing smells of what it actually is: a PR campaign effort to remake a ne’er-do-well nepo baby into a “working class male” candidate to compete with Trump’s appeal to men.

And thanks to Platner’s empty legal threats, we all get to drill down even more into all of this evidence that he’s just a phony, propped up by Democratic Socialist organizers to grab another Senate seat. That’s not defamation; that’s a reasonable conclusion based on the evidence at hand. 

Robinson does have an offer to settle the matter, however:

Prove that all your Kik sexting pals were over 18 and I’ll apologize. pic.twitter.com/MxeBmDcRR5

— Steve Robinson (@SteveRob) June 7, 2026

If Platner’s Kik account is all above board, that should be no problem. Right? Right? Hey, Platner wants to make a legal issue out of it, so let’s get discovery started!

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