The woman who accused Graham Platner, the Democratic Maine Senate hopeful, of physical abuse in a highly anticipated New York Times exposé slammed the newspaper for grossly misleading her and manipulating her account, turning the story into a “gift to the Platner campaign.”
Lyndsey Fifield broke her silence Friday after the Times ran its story Thursday afternoon, claiming she was “set up” by the outlet. The Times notably buried Fifield’s allegations against Platner dozens of paragraphs into the story, which she said was “methodically delayed and twisted” to benefit the Democrat candidate’s campaign. (RELATED: Graham Platner’s Alleged Victims Came Forward. The New York Times Fed Them To The Wolves)
Fifield also stated that the Times approached her and that she was initially not interested in commenting on the story, but she was later convinced by the reporters, who claimed other women were willing to come forward. Several of these other alleged accusers were not cited in the final story, making Fifield the unwilling focal point.
“They said but wait — there are other women,” Fifield said of the Times in a Friday post on X. “Women terrified to tell their stories, too, and you need to band together. WE will help you. We will protect you. Men can’t keep getting away with this.”
ORONO, MAINE – MAY 24: Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Graham Platner speaks at a “Fighting Oligarchy” tour stop held by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) at the Collins Center for the Arts on the University of Maine campus on May 24, 2026 in Orono, Maine. Platner is the presumptive Democratic nominee and will face incumbent Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) for Maine’s U.S. Senate seat in the general election. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
“They connected me to two of the other victims so we wouldn’t feel so alone,” Fifield added. “I insisted to each of them that I trusted the NYT journalists and that we were doing the right thing despite their (sadly very accurate) sense that something was wrong.”
Fifield’s accusations against Platner amounted to physical abuse, saying he regularly grabbed her by the shoulders “hard enough to leave marks” and that he had locked her into a bedroom overnight during an argument. Fifield was stunned when she realized that she had not only become the focus of the story, but that the Times excluded the accounts of two other alleged victims. She also raised questions about the Times’ focus on her work history as a conservative operative in Washington, D.C., which she said was part of the intentional “set up” to discredit her. (RELATED: Graham Platner Wrote About Masturbating In Public Toilets, Mocked Wounded US Soldier)
“After the story went up I began to ask them … wait, where are the stories from the other women?” Fifield said. “Where are their accusations of sexual assault? Why am I the focus? Why are there 11 paragraphs dedicated to detailing my work history (more than has been published about Graham’s by far)?”
“It dawned on me that this really was a set up all along,” Fifield said. “The journalists I trusted who convinced me to share a story I never wanted to tell methodically delayed and twisted this into a gift to the Platner campaign. Violating the trust of his victims. Shattering the trust I placed in them with the most vulnerable story in my life.”