The Woman Who Accused Rep. Keith Ellison Of Abuse Spoke Up On Camera For The First Time

Rep. Keith Ellison has vehemently denied allegations of physical abuse levied against him by a former partner. But now, the woman accusing Ellison of domestic abuse has spoken out on camera for the first time, telling CBS News she has video of the alleged incident.

In an interview with CBS News, Karen Monahan alleged Ellison had become so enraged during an argument in September of 2016 that he physically dragged her off a bed. According to Monahan, Ellison was angry that she had not fully acknowledged his request for her to take out the trash. She told CBS News that Ellison walked into the room where she was laying on a bed listening to a podcast and proceeded to get physical.

"He looked at me, goes 'Hey you f*cking hear me?' and then he looked at me, he goes 'Bitch, get the f*ck out of my house,' and he started to try to drag me off the bed," Monahan said. "That's when I put my camera on to video him."

In an interview with CBS Minnesota, Ellison denied having ever physically dragged Monahan off a bed. "I'm mortified, absolutely stunned that she would say this," he said, adding there "couldn't be" video of the alleged incident "because I never did that."

Although Monahan said she still has video of the alleged incident, she did not share that video with CBS News, claiming that sharing it was too traumatic. She also told the news outlet that she felt her words should be enough for people to believe her story.

Monahan had previously told CNN she had "misplaced" the video but would not want it to become public anyway as it was "embarrassing" and "traumatizing."

Last week Monahan's son Austin claimed to have seen the video in 2017 in a Facebook post that has since been deleted or marked private. "I was using my moms computer trying to download something and I clicked on a file, I found over 100 text and twitters messages and video almost 2 min long that showed Keith Ellison dragging my mama off the bed by her feet, screaming and calling her a ‘fucking bitch’ and telling her to get the fuck out of his house," the Daily Caller reported he wrote.

Monahan's son went on to say he and his brother had wanted to go public with the allegations when he'd first found the video but that their mother "begged us not to."

Monahan confirmed her son's story shortly after on Twitter. "What my son said is true," she wrote. "Every statement he made was true." She then went on to address Ellison, writing "you know you did that to me. I have given every opportunity to get help and heal. Even now, u r willing to say my son is lying and have me continue to leak more text and info just so others will believe him."

Recently, Monahan told Think Progress' Elham Khatami that she'd tied to "bury" the alleged incident so she could "function and keep working" but that the #MeToo movement had caused her to reconsider. "The MeToo movement happened and that same nagging feeling came back," she said.