Karla Jacinto Romero and Katie Britt
Even the victim in Katie Britt's elaborate sex-trafficking tale, at the heart of her Republican response to the State of the Union address, now is blasting the Alabama senator's widely criticized oratorical efforts. That is from a piece at The New Republic (TNR), under the headline "Sex Trafficking Survivor Detests Being in Republicans’ SOTU Response; Karla Jacinto Romero isn’t happy about the way Republican Senator Katie Britt used her story for the State of the Union rebuttal."
TNR reporter Paige Oamek makes it clear that Karla Jacinto Romero is not pleased with the way Britt misappropriated and misconstrued her story of gross sexual abuse at the hands of a pimp in Mexico. Writes Oamek:
The sex trafficking survivor who was mentioned by Republican Senator Katie Britt in the State of the Union rebuttal says her story was totally warped by the senator as part of an attack on Joe Biden’s immigration policies.
“I hardly ever cooperate with politicians, because it seems to me that they only want an image. They only want a photo—and that to me is not fair,” Karla Jacinto Romero told CNN on Sunday. Jacinto Romero also confirmed that no one from Britt’s team had reached out to her asking to share her story.
That suggests Britt used Romero's story without talking to her about it, and that's only the beginning of the underhanded ways Britt dealt with the matter. It also raises this question: If Britt did not get her information directly from Romero, and that's what Romero's words suggest, where did she get it? Was someone else -- perhaps from the Donald Trump campaign or the Republican Party -- involved in helping Britt disseminate false information designed to make President Joe Biden look weak on border issues? If so, did the content of Britt's tortured speech involve a conspiracy -- one that could involve criminal activity?
At the moment, we know for sure that Karla Jacinto Romero is unhappy about being dragged into Britt's narrative. Writes Oamek:
In her widely criticized State of the Union response, Britt shared the graphic story of a woman who was raped by human traffickers for years.
“When I first took office, I did something different. I traveled to the Del Rio sector of Texas, where I spoke to a woman who shared her story with me. She had been sex trafficked by the cartels starting at age 12,” Britt said in her speech, seeming to imply that this happened in the United States during Biden’s presidency.
Britt’s communications director has already stated that the woman in the story was Jacinto Romero. And Jacinto Romero, in her interview with CNN, is confirming a viral TikTok that Britt got all the dates—and some other details—wrong.
In short, Britt messed up the story big time. Was that done intentionally, perhaps at someone else's encouragement? That is one of many questions hanging out there for now. From the TNR piece:
In reality, Jacinto Romero was kept in captivity in Mexico from 2004 to 2008, when President George W. Bush was president. She was not trafficked in the United States, nor was she trafficked by drug cartels as Britt alleged in her speech, but by a pimp who kidnapped young girls.
Jacinto Romero also disputes Britt’s version of the story, which made it seem like the two women met in a private meeting.
Jacinto Romero told CNN that she actually met Britt at an anti-trafficking event last year at the southern border, with several other government officials in attendance, including Republican Senators Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee and Cindy Hyde-Smith of Mississippi.
Has Britt acknowledged her screw ups and maybe apologized for them. Not on your life? Like Donald Trump himself, Britt seems disinclined to take responsibility or apologize for anything. Writes Oamek:
As these clarifications have come to light, how has Britt responded? Well, she’s doubling down of course.
When Fox News host Shannon Bream asked Britt Sunday if she meant to imply that this all happened during Biden’s presidency, Britt responded, “No. I very specifically said, ‘This is what President Biden did during his first 100 days.’ He stopped all deportations, he halted construction of the border wall and he said, ‘I’m going to give amnesty to millions.’ Those types of things act as a magnet to help more and more people here.”
She followed up that sentence with the statement, “President Biden’s border crisis is a disgrace. It’s despicable. And it’s almost entirely preventable.”
Being a postmodern Republican apparently means "never having to say you're sorry." -- or admitting you were wrong and dishonest, falsely conflating the Romero horror story with Joe Biden's immigration policies -- even now that Romero says the two had nothing to do with each other, and the abuse she experienced did not happen in the United States.
Can you at least say "whoops," Katie?
